


Flicker Out

by crystalrequiem



Series: Set your Soul to a Song [1]
Category: Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prosthetics, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, post cave, pre mansion, pseudo medicine, whoops. drop another quarter in that new fanfic idea jar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-15 15:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12323562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalrequiem/pseuds/crystalrequiem
Summary: Arthur doesn't deserve to be the one alive. It should be Lewis, not him. He wishes more than anything that he could right that wrong but... He promised Vivi he'd stick around.Stupid thing to do, really.(A fic to explain why Arthur doesn't seem to remember what happened to Lewis in Freakin' Out)





	1. Dancing in Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Yo! Yeah, yeah, new fic again. I'm terrible.  
> I know I always say this, but I /ACTUALLY/ almost have this completed, so it's going to be done. Probably in two days. So there. 
> 
> *My deepest apologies to any of you with medical, engineering, or prosthetic experience. I had to make up a lot of pseudo-medical-sciency stuff because I HAVE NO IDEA how Artie’s arm would work IRL. As far as I can gather, most available prosthetics these days have way less functionality than Artie’s seems to in the animations, and the really fancy cutting edge stuff takes about a year minimum of surgery and physical therapy to use. It doesn’t seem like MSA runs on that sort of timeline. So I’m just gonna go with the bullshit copout of, “ARTHUR CAME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER, I GUESS” while trying to keep things as realistic as possible. ^_^;; 
> 
> *Also: Fandom: Please note that advanced prosthetics need a rechargeable power supply. I have no idea why people haven’t been jumping all over this as a plot device. Imagine Arthur’s arm running out of power at an inopportune moment, or watching unseen ghosts drain his battery life like the world’s most inconvenient EMF. Someone please take this plot bunny and do something with it asap.

* * *

 

_I won’t keep watching you_

_Dance around in your smoke_

_And flicker out_

  -Elliot Moss, Slip

* * *

 

“Arthur, you oughta eat somethin’,” Lance’s voice only just reaches him through the haze of his obsession. He’s too busy to eat. Too busy to think. He’s covered in graphite and eraser shavings, halfway through the third redesign of a working robotic prosthetic.  It’s something to throw himself into—a possibility—a way to forget why he needs it.

“Sure,” he calls back, mindlessly. “I’ll go grab something. Just a bit.” His uncle frowns, but nods and leaves him be. They must think he’s deep in a manic episode because he’s upset about his missing limb, not because—because—

 _God_ , he—Lewis.

Arthur sketches another line and tries to make himself forget.

He does get up, an hour later or so, to clean out Galahad's space and refill the food in his bowl. Poor little guy shouldn’t suffer just because Arthur can’t handle things right now. Out of deference to his uncle, he wanders into the kitchen and looks things over in the fridge, but everything seems to turn his stomach. He’s not hungry.

He doesn’t deserve to eat.

Arthur slams the door shut and makes a beeline back to the workshop.

 

* * *

 

“Arty?” Vivi is a force of nature in the shape of a woman. She’s hard and strong and all the things he doesn’t know how to be. So it sounds out of place when she calls to him and she sounds… sad. Frightened.

Arthur is very busy with his creation. He’s finally making progress with this damn thing, and he doesn’t want to stop, but for her… He pulls himself out of it. He owes it to her. He sets his prototype down, watches the way the fabricated skeleton of a hand settles when he places it on the workbench. It’s good to see that the finger joints move the way they should. They’ll function even better when he gets power and wiring figured out.

“Hey Viv,” he calls out, and he’s almost surprised to note how rough his own voice sounds. He turns in his seat to look her way, but it aches to do so. He _hurts_. He’s bone weary.  There’s a pounding in his head that’s subsided to a familiar, dull roar long ago.

“Hey,” she answers, but she sounds like she’s going to cry. He still feels like he’s dragging himself out of quicksand, but that sound shakes him free. His gaze snaps to her, really focuses on her, and he notices three things: First, she’s already crying. She looks far too pale, more frightened than he’s ever really seen her. He doesn’t know why. He wants to fix it. Second, Lance is there too, just behind her in the doorway. He’s looking between the two of them like she’s managed to pull of some kind of miracle. And third, Mystery came with her. Mystery is in dog-guise with his head pressed into his paws, whining at him on the workshop floor.

He tries to run to her side, he tries to run from the beast that tore his arm, he wants to keep her safe, he wants to let Mystery finish the job. He does none of these things. When he leaps from his seat, his foot catches on a part of his own chair, and he tips forward. Like the idiot he is, he tries to break his fall with an arm he doesn’t have and winds up crashing face-first into the ground.

“Arthur!” Vivi and Lance both shout. Mystery barks. The mechanic himself just lays in his misery and recognizes the taste of blood in the back of his throat. Hmm. Is his nose broken, or merely injured?

“Shit, Kid! You’re already dinged up enough. You _tryin’_ to hurt yourself?” Lance rushes to his side and pulls him into a sitting position. Arthur knows it’s not supposed to be funny, but it is. He feels blood running down his face, and he thinks he might be leaning toward _broken_ , but there’s pools of red on the ground again—again and it’s _funny_ so he laughs. He laughs. 

No one laughs with him.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t remember passing out, but at some point he wakes up, so he must have. His face hurts like hell and his missing arm _aches_. It probably will for the rest of his life. He deserves it. He ignores it. Tentatively, he probes the bridge of his nose with his index finger. _Nope._ Not doing that again any time soon. Definitely broken, and knowing Lance, probably set back in place. He can’t breathe so easy out one nostril, but maybe something’s just swollen…? He doesn’t have the energy to care.

Arthur sighs, tries not to think about how strangely difficult it is just to sit up without one limb, and forces himself to move. Pain shoots from the back of his skull down his spine. Maybe he deserves that too.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Vivi’s voice. He searches her out in the dim light of his bedroom and finds her on the floor. She has her back to the mattress, knees up to her chest. Her hair is a mess and there’s red marks on her face, cheeks and nose that suggest she’s been sleeping with her glasses on. She’s perfect.

Guilt overwhelms him, threatens to drown him. He’s not allowed to think that. He can’t—can’t—

Arthur shuts down, breathes, restarts. Vivi. His room.

“Hi Viv,” he mumbles groggily. She smiles at him, and he feels something twinge in his chest. She’s always held half of his heart. Always and forever. “Wish I’d known you were coming over. Woulda’ cleaned up.” He’s got to look a fright. He wasn’t in the best shape before, but if his nose is broken, his eyes must be bruising black by now. He has no idea how long he was out in the workshop before today, so no telling how bad he must smell. His room looks about as tidy as he does; there’s clothing strewn over every inch of his floor, and Gally’s been making a mess with some old designs in the corner, but she doesn’t seem to care about any of it. Neither she nor Lewis really ever—

His breath stutters again. Briefly, his heartache surges to overwhelm the throb of his arm. That’s going to hurt for the rest of his life too, isn’t it?

“Well, I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up. Had me pretty scared. Lance too.” There’s hurt and fear hidden behind her light tone. Maybe a touch of anger.

“Sorry,” Arthur murmurs, but he doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. A lot of things. Most of it, she’ll never even remember.

This is ridiculous. He wants to stop thinking. He wants to go back to his work.

“I know you can get pretty caught up in your projects, dingus, but…. Do you even know what day it is?” She already knows the answer to that. He doesn’t know why she bothered asking. But her eyes are pleading with him, and he has to scramble for a response anyway.

“Tuesday,” he makes an educated guess. He hasn’t bothered to look at a calendar since before L—before he lost his arm, but he knows Vivi almost always helps out at the book store on the weekends, and Lance only takes his days off Saturday and Tuesday, so.

“Alright, wise guy, what _date_ is it.” She’s got her hands on her hips, eyes sparking with mischief. There are deep bags beneath her eyes. She can’t remember, but maybe when she dreams… Does she dream of him?

“Vivi,” the truth escapes him in a rush of air, “I don’t even know what month it is.” He doesn’t have the energy to keep up with pretense just now. She looks crestfallen.

“Well! Well.” She’s stumbling. She wanted to tease him, but she can’t. He must seem so pathetic to her. “How much longer do you think this project will take?” Arthur shrugs. His thoughts turn to the pieces and nerves of his prototype. There’s tiny computers to program and power to engineer, biomechanics to research and methods of connection to consider. He has no real way to estimate how much longer all that will take, but it doesn’t really matter. Honestly, he would probably strive to make it _perfect_ , draw it out as long as he wanted and let the work take him mindlessly out of the world. Forever? Hopefully.

“A while,” Arthur mumbles instead. Vivi sighs. She looks almost as tired as he feels. It’s not right. He doesn’t want her to hurt. She’s not _supposed_ to.

“Thought so.” She quirks her mouth in a sad smile, and reaches up to grasp his remaining hand between her own. “Alright then, here’s the plan from here on out. Every day, I’ll come here after work. I’ll bring food. We’ll eat together. And when it gets late, you’ll go to bed.”  She wants to take care of him. She wants him to sleep and eat and _recover_ like a functioning human being. Arthur can’t stand it. He doesn’t deserve her attention.

“Vivi, I really don’t need that kind of looking after. You don’t have to go out of your way like—”

“Arthur,” something changes in her tone, goes severe and brittle. “I’ve already lost—I don’t know! I’ve lost someone I don’t know, and it’s terrifying. I haven’t talked to you about it because you had enough going on but—I’m missing someone. I _know_ I’m missing someone. Aren’t I?” Arthur’s heart seizes in his chest. There are pink sparks glittering in Vivi’s eyes as she talks, only visible because the room is so dimly lit. He wants so _badly_ to fix it. He’d give anything. He’d do _anything_.

“Yes,” he confirms. His voice is barely louder than a whisper. Vivi makes a strangled noise; he can’t tell whether she’s relieved or about to break into tears.

“I don’t always remember it, but I always _feel_ it—this—this _loss_. There’s always something missing.” Every word she speaks drives another spike into his heart. He didn’t mean to. God this is _all his fault_. If he hadn’t been such a weak, selfish _fool_ maybe he could have— “So please, don’t make it twofold. If I lose you too, I can’t—I couldn’t—” Vivi is strong. Vivi is amazing, and smart, and fearless. Vivi breaks down in tears, and Arthur can’t bear it.

“Okay,” He murmurs. His vision swims with its own teary haze. He doesn’t deserve to be here. He’s not good enough to be near her. It should have been Lewis. She’d hate him if she knew what happened in that cave, but she’d still be sad and alone, and he—he forgets all that. She’s here. She’s his best friend and she’s upset. He can’t just sit there and watch. He wants to run away. He wants to bury himself, but not if it hurts her. He never wants to hurt her. He never wanted to hurt either of them. “Okay,” Arthur whispers again as he reaches out, slips to the floor beside her and gathers her in his arms.

He doesn’t deserve to be here. But he is. He has to be.

 

* * *

 

Viv’s as good as her word. He doesn’t know what she’s told her parents or Lance. He’s sure he doesn’t want to. But every day around dinner time, without fail, she comes back to his place. She bullies him away from his workbench, and fights with him to stuff a little food in his face. He knows he should feel touched that she cares this much about him, but he can’t. If she knew….

Well. At least there’s someone else to make sure Gally gets food and attention. Little guy deserves better than Arthur’s dissociating ass, and Lance isn’t always around.

So Viv babysits him now. She eats with him, distracts him with a game or a conversation, and makes sure he heads to his room when it gets late. He tries for her. He wants to take her worries away, and if recovery is the only way to do that, then… Even so, sleep evades him. Arthur drifts off only when he finally collapses, and even then he can’t stay under for long. He blacks out in fits and starts, jerks awake with every dream. He wants to get better for Vivi. He does. But he can’t sleep when Lewis’s broken body haunts him every time he closes his eyes.

Every night, he walks to his bed, pulls the blankets up, and waits. Vivi’s so tired these days. It must be exhausting, grieving for something she can’t recall, worrying over her utter idiot of a friend. Arthur hates it for her. Lucky for him, her fatigue helps her pass out the moment her head hits the couch pillows, and she sleeps heavy. it’s a simple thing to wait for the living room to quiet, and creep back down to the workshop in the dark. She might catch him there in the morning, but she has no way to know he didn’t just get up early. Lance sleeps like the dead, and his room is on the opposite side of the house, so Arthur doesn’t think his Uncle will figure him out either.

Mystery knows. He’s felt the spirit _watching_ him creep into the workshop more than once. But Vivi tends to use her companion as a living pillow, and he doesn’t seem to want to disturb her. When Mystery finally does track him down around two (or three?) in the morning, it comes as something as a surprise.

Arthur tries not to react, but he can’t help it. He sees white fur and red eyes and remembers the sensation of his arm ripping apart. His shoulder _throbs_. He reaches for another bit of soldering wire with trembling fingers and starts to fit the next join into place. Everything is harder with only one arm, but he’s got a method now. Enough of the skeleton is complete that he can cover his lap with a heat resistant apron and hold the prosthetic in place between his thighs while he works. Problem is, he hasn’t gotten enough sleep to keep a steady hand. His trembling grants an extra layer of difficulty to the craft, and he nicked his fingers on sharp edges enough times earlier today that there’s a liberal scattering of blood arrayed about the workbench. Other than the added annoyance of extra cleaning before each join, he doesn’t care.  He thinks he’s starting to loose feeling in his fingertips, maybe.

“You know it wasn’t your fault.” He doesn’t have to wonder what the spirit means. He doesn’t have the luxury of ignorance. “ _It_ ,” haunts him with every breath.

The silence drags on just a beat too long. 

“Sure,” he answers, because he knows Mystery wants to hear it. A meaningless platitude. Arthur knows the truth. A demon had possessed him that night. It had forced his hand, literally, and he understands that well enough. He was not directly the entity responsible for pushing his best friend to a grisly death. Sure.

But—

But if he hadn’t been upset that night, would it have possessed him so easily?

He’d _known_ something was off. If he had tried harder to get them to leave,

If he’d stayed back with the van,

If he’d gone with Vivi instead,

If he’d _thrown himself down with all his might and died like he should have_ —

….He didn’t push Lewis directly, but it was still his fault that Lewis...

Arthur reaches out, picks up another thin piece of metal, and brings it close. Using the soldering iron is awkward as hell, but if he holds the wire in his mouth, he can manage to melt it in where it needs to go. Messy work, but he hasn’t got much choice. He can file things smooth later. Besides, this is already his second or third prototype. He’ll probably scrap this one later anyway, and re-do the whole thing with silver solder after he’s certain he’s got things right.  

“Where’s Viv?” he asks around the wire, thoughts flooded with blessed engineering. Mystery exhales with a strange, huffing sound that might be a scoff. It makes the hair on Arthur’s neck stand on end.

“Still asleep, or she’d be dragging you back to your room right now.” Logical, he supposes. Arthur shrugs, and glances back at his design. “You were supposed to stay there and sleep, you know.” Does he have enough pieces cut? He can use the circular saw if he’s creative enough with a series of clamps, but he’s going to need to figure out a way to weld eventually. Soldering only gets him so far. Maybe he can make a less functional prosthetic, just for the purpose of crafting? Since he doesn’t have a port to attach anything to yet, it’d have to have some kind of cumbersome harness. Annoying, but it’d only be temporary. Wouldn’t have to be perfect, he’d just need—

“How often do you do this, Arthur?” Mystery is suddenly much closer than before. Arthur snaps back to awareness with a start, fumbling the soldering iron in his fright. It tumbles away from him, brushing against his remaining wrist on the way down and leaving a painful burn in its wake. _Shit, shit, shit._ How does he keep managing to hurt himself like this? He’s wearing a glove, but that doesn’t protect the unguarded skin of his forearm and elbow. Arthur’s arm shakes when he reaches forward to turn the iron off, but it has to be done. He can hardly lift the prosthetic to set it back down on the bench.

“Arthur? Are you okay?” Mystery still cares about him. Mystery is terrifying and Mystery is _not_ a dog, and for some reason Mystery cares about him. Arthur tosses his glove on the table and tries to push himself up. He’s got to get this damn thing under the water.

“I’m fine,” he grits, and tries to find the strength to make it across the room to the sink. Mystery’s standing directly along the path.

“You don’t look fine. You look—” Arthur’s knees buckle. Mystery cares about him, so Mystery rushes in, changes shape to hold Arthur’s weight against his back. The space where his left arm used to be feels like it’s tearing all over again. Teeth under his skin, rooting through muscle, snapping sinew and the shattering crunch of bone. He—He can’t breathe. He can’t— “Come on, let’s get you back to bed,” the not-dog sighs, sounding every bit the disappointed guardian. Arthur chokes and his wrist _burns_ and he tries to find his voice.

“Sink,” He manages to croak. Mystery comes to a halt just this side of the doorway.  “Need to get to… s-sink.” He doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Mystery _focuses_ on him now. He’s breathing far too quickly, he’s going to hyperventilate if he doesn’t get this damn fear under control. Mystery cares about him. Mystery wouldn’t try to kill him. He only took the arm because—because—

(He wishes Mystery would try to kill him)

 “Alright,” the spirit concedes, his tone edged with suspicion. He shakes Arthur off just in front of the basin, and watches with that heavy, red gaze. Arthur doesn’t bother standing up. He just kneels there, twists the knob for cold water up as high as it’ll go, and lets his arm hang over the lip. There’s an angry line down the length of his inner forearm, bright and irritated. How lucky he was to catch the iron on its way down in just such a way! He could almost laugh.

He jerks when the water first hits skin, stifling a noise of pain. It hurts like hell, but he’s felt worse. He’s felt far worse. Arthur presses his face into the cold metal of the sink and tries to remember how to breathe.

“Arthur? What’s happening right now? Should I wake Vivi? Do you need—” Mystery cares about him. He wants to reach out for comfort. He wants to recoil in terror. He wants… It doesn’t matter what he wants. He’s only got one arm, and it needs to stay under the spray.

“Burnt the shit out of myself,” Arthur mumbles, and tries to make it sound like a joke. Ha-ha, look at the dumbass constantly falling into trouble. Wonder how he hasn’t killed himself yet, working in a goddamn garage. Walking disaster like that. “Need to run water over it for a while.” He feels Mystery sidle closer to better examine the offending limb, tries not to tense or tremble when that face leans in to get a look. Mystery cares about him. Mystery wouldn’t—

“Give it a few minutes, but when you’re done, you’re going back to bed.” Arthur nods, weakly. He doesn’t want to. The water is freezing and his arm burns. His mind is racing with too many thoughts. He wants to make it all go away. He wants to lose himself in work until forever comes but… Mystery cares about him. And Vivi needs him to stay.


	2. Rain for the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....alright look.  
>  I DO have the ending written. There's only supposed to be two more scenes until the end.  
> except then i accidentally added a scene so...   
> three chapters it is. 
> 
> Does anyone ever actually manage to follow their chapter estimates?
> 
> Anywho, if anyone was wondering; this whole story will stick to Arthur's POV, but the next one in the series focuses on some one else. ;)
> 
> As always, Comments highly encouraged! Hope you all enjoy.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s been…He doesn’t know, actually. For him, it feels like the world has already ended and he’s just surviving on the fringe. The passage of time has little meaning when just _living_ takes all his effort. He’s started measuring existence by the state of his project instead. He’s four skeletal prototypes in, has made more than a few hackneyed devices to help himself with processes like welding, and he’s starting to mess around with power configurations and microcomputers… it has to have been a while. Through it all, Vivi and Mystery remain a nightly presence in his home. The two of them have teamed up with his uncle to babysit his sorry skin. It’s as frustrating as it is flattering.

Lance takes his lunches at home now, puttering around the workshop, asking if Arthur could use help with anything. And he doesn’t know whether Mystery tattled on him, but since his incident with the soldering iron, Lance installed a lock on the workshop door and handed Viv the key. She’s been locking him out of it every night ever since. He’d be angry about it, but he can’t find the energy. He knows why she does it. Besides, he’s still got his laptop and a box of electronic components stashed under his bed. If she doesn’t know he’s programing weight detection and calibration systems when he can’t sleep at night, it won’t hurt her.

However long it’s been, she hasn’t taken a single case since… since she’s been here. It’s one more thing for him to guilt himself over. He may not have been the most enthusiastic of paranormal investigators, but it had been Vivi and Lewis—it had been Viv’s passion. The pull of the hunt has _got_ to be nagging at her. It’s inevitable that she’ll find some phenomena that grabs her attention. He’s just not sure why she hasn’t already.

When he walks into the kitchen one morning to find her guiltily sneaking a plethora of Tupperware into his fridge like some kind of reverse-burglar, he knows exactly what’s going on.

“Where’s the case?” he asks, leaning against the entry-way. The tortured skin of his armless shoulder twinges when he places too much weight on it. He presses harder. The feeling helps him stay awake.

Vivi fumbles the container she’s holding and jumps up in surprise, nearly bashing her head against the refrigerator door. “Arthur!” she squeaks. “You’re up early!” His face feels strange, and he realizes belatedly that he wants to laugh at her. Right. Laughing. He hasn’t done that in a while.

“Hm.” He decides not to tell her that he didn’t actually sleep, and simply repeats himself instead. “Where are you headed out to?”

“What makes you think I’m going anywhere?” Arthur stares at her knowingly. He wishes he could still cross his arms over his chest for effect.

“You’re stocking the fridge with a week’s worth of pre-cooked leftovers, and your bag’s packed at the front door,” he murmurs, words dripping with dry humor at her expense. She huffs and blows a strand of hair out of her face.

_Stop being so cute_ , he thinks, and desperately tries not to.

“Alright, alright! So I picked up a little gig. It’s really not that big a deal—just a run to a place not even an hour from here. But all the reported activity there happens at night, so I’ll have to sleep over there a few nights and—” He doesn’t know why she feels like she has to defend herself to him, or why she thinks she’s doing something wrong by leaving. Why should she stop doing what she loves just because he’s… the way he is?

_It’s not a secret that you don’t actually need me there to help you,_ he muses to himself.

“Okay,” he says instead. “Do you want help loading up the van? I think I had a few repairs I wanted to make before the—well… before.” His heart twists painfully in his chest. He’s starting to get used to the feeling.

“Oh, the van?” Vivi’s calming down, but she still seems uncertain. “I don’t know—I wasn’t sure if I should take it. It just won’t be the same without you and—” Her mouth opens to say the name, and Arthur watches with wide eyes. Her lips part, he tongue touches the back of her teeth and he thinks for one breathless moment that she might remember here and now. “It won’t be the same without you and…?” Her face slowly goes slack, eyes clouding. Arthur bites his cheek and fights against the urge to cry. He doesn’t think he’s _ever_ going to get used to that.

Mystery says Vivi made herself forget because she needed to. Arthur doesn’t know if he believes that. Viv isn’t like him. She’d never been one to hide from her problems, and the blank spaces in her memory don’t seem to be doing her any favors. The bags beneath her eyes are almost as dark as his. Maybe she’ll shake it off in time. Maybe someday she’ll remember what an amazing, perfect person Lewis was and that’s the day he’ll—that’s the day he’ll tell her what happened.

It’ll be the end of him when she leaves for good.

He’s not sure how to feel about that, actually. Maybe he’s just waiting around for her to need him less so he can… he probably shouldn’t finish that thought.

“Vivi, do you want me to bring your stuff out to the van?” He asks as he steps forward and gently shuts the refrigerator door. Vivi stares at him, as if she’s not quite sure what he’s saying. She’s usually stuck in her head for a while after something reminds her of Lewis.

“If you don’t mind,” she tells him, but she sounds like she’s dreaming awake.

Arthur pulls her to the couch and helps her sit, grabs her bag and starts trekking to the garage. It’s far heavier in his hand than it has any right to be. He’s running on fumes. Vivi had gotten him to eat a decent amount last night, but it’s been a while since the last time he passed out and he’s starting to really feel it. He just wants to go back to his workshop and throw himself into his project, but she takes priority. She always will.

The van looks somehow lonely in its parking place. Arthur has to drop Viv’s things to go hunt down the keys, but he discovers them quickly enough. This old thing… holds a lot of memories for him. He pats the body gently and wonders why this feels like saying goodbye.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Arthur leaps comically backwards at the unexpected sound of Mystery’s voice, his pulse racing in his ears. The not-dog sits placidly, silhouetted in the frame of the garage door.

/ _white fur and red eyes, tearing pain—Hot breath on his neck, and it hurts, it hurts—_ /

“Oh my _god, Mystery_ don’t do that!” He pleads between gasps for air. As always, his knees feel weak, there’s alarm and adrenaline pulsing through his veins, and Mystery is staring him down with something that looks vaguely like hurt.

“The question does still stand.” He probes, tone entirely blank. Arthur clenches his eyes shut and tries to get himself under control. Mystery still cares about him. He repeats it over and over, a mantra. He just has to keep telling himself until he really believes it’s true.  Swallowing, he takes a deep breath.

“I’m not much use as a mechanic at the moment. And the van doesn’t exactly have the right setup for one-armed driving either.”

“And?” Arthur doesn’t know what the spirit thinks he’s digging at. With a side-eyed glance Mystery’s way, he climbs into the back of the van and examines the equipment within. There’s a fine layer of dust over everything. The sight strikes him as strangely sad. Maybe he's just too sleep deprived to make emotional sense. “No one wants you to come along in order to be of _use_ , Arthur. We want you around because you’re our friend.” There’s a screw loose on one of Viv’s EMF devices, but other than that, things look to be in order. He should probably fix that up. Maybe take some compressed air to as many components as he can before Viv sets out. It’ll take her a while to settle after her memory issues earlier, so he’s got the time for it. And the van hasn’t been started for a while. Maybe he should run through an oil change, make sure the battery’s still got charge. Arthur keeps thinking through all the maintenance he might be able to run before Viv gets herself back up and running, and immerses himself in the processes until he feels numb enough to talk.

“So, Mystery, do you remember that time I killed one of us because I was weak to possession?” he tries to sound blasé, as if the words don’t make him feel like screaming. Mystery says nothing, but his white ears droop. “I’m not putting anyone in danger like that again. I’m too much of a liability to have near a haunt, and I’m currently useless for anything else. So there’s no point.” He steps back out onto the garage floor and starts searching for any tools he might need. He keeps most of his things in his workshop, but Lance generally has a toolbox or two in the garage.  He roots around for a screwdriver and can’t help musing aloud, “Besides… it’s not like she asked me to come. She probably doesn’t want me there.” Mystery scoffs.

“Actually, she hemmed and hawed about asking you to join us. In the end, she figured you might be too traumatized by the case that took your arm to agree.” He lifts himself to all fours and turns back toward the rest of the house. “Guess she was right,” he snarks.

Arthur stands in his wake and wonders whether that was supposed to make him feel something. Hurt his pride? Antagonize him? He doesn’t know. It wasn’t very subtle. Mostly he just feels sad and exhausted. He misses Lewis so badly that he can’t breathe, and he feels like he’s losing Vivi too. That’s fine. He never deserved her in the first place.

Arthur finally finds a phillips head he can use, grabs it, and crawls back up into the van.  He drags his fingers through dust, tightens an old screw, and is very, very tired.

 

* * *

 

“Kid?”

He rolls sluggishly towards awareness. He tries to remember where he is and what’s going on, to little avail. The sensation of his cheek pressed against something hard reminds him that he’s alive. The ache in his neck and back quickly make their unwanted return soon after. Had he been sleeping? Maybe he should just stay here and keep doing that. He doesn’t think he wants to move.

“Arthur? Hey, kiddo this ain’t no good.” Is that voice someone he knows? He thinks it’s familiar. Maybe he should get up and see. Just… five more minutes.

“Arty, I ain’t kiddin’ and I’m not so old I can’t still pick you up over my shoulder neither.” They’re still talking to him. It’s probably something important…

“Hrm,” he responds eloquently as he tries to remember how to open his eyes. He scrounges up enough effort to ease one eyelid open and peer up at his addressor. Staring back over the horizon of his elbow is a short, heavy-built individual still grimy with motor oil. He wears an odd expression on his face. Worry? Probably worry. “Lance?” Arthur croaks, and watches the man relax ever so slightly.

“Came home late, and didn’t know where you were. You takin’ a nap on the job there, Kingsman?” He huffs, not sure whether he wants to pout or laugh along. He groggily reaches out a hand, intending to placate his grumpy uncle. Unfortunately, the elder Kingsman misinterprets this gesture as a request for help standing, and before he knows what’s up and what’s down he’s sliding towards the floor. Lance scurries to catch him with a flurry of curses

“What job?” Arthur croaks with comfortable self-derision. He could certainly learn to work as a mechanic with or without the prosthetic, but either way he needs time before he can return to his place at the shop. He’s either got to finish the arm or re-train himself to do everything with one hand. It only makes sense; they work with enough dangerous tools that he wouldn’t want to be a liability. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. (He’s bitterly tired of being a liability)

“C’mon, Art, don’t be like that. And Lan’ sakes kid, what’s wrong with you. You didn’t get to drinkin’, did ya?” He feels his nose wrinkle at the thought. That’s probably the last thing he needs; another place to escape to.

“I wish,” he grumbles, takes a deep breath, and tries to will his legs to work. He feels all out of balance, dizzy. He’d probably just gotten up far too quickly.

“…Have you eaten yet?” Lance asks once he has his nephew steadied, punctuating the question with a hearty pat on the back. Arthur tries not to wince at the feeling. Turns out, sleeping hunched over the workbench? Not great for his spine.

“No,” he answers, before he can remember to lie. Lance frowns.

“Why didn’t Vivi come drive you out of here yet?” Right. He’d almost forgotten. For about 30 seconds of consciousness he hadn’t been thinking about it.

“Oh. She’s out on a job.”

“Oh.” Lance echoes. Slowly, his brows pull downward. His expression is positively thunderous by the time he turns back to his nephew. “Well. Either way, we’re not goin’ back to this nonsense again.” Arthur yelps as the shorter man makes good on his threat and actually hefts Arthur over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.

“What the shit, Lance!”

“Watch your fuckin’ language, Kid!” He teases as he marches the both of them into the living room and pretends to suplex Arthur onto the couch. “Keep your tuckus planted, I’ll go scrounge up some food.”

He’s a little too stunned to do otherwise. Part of him is still wondering whether he’s actually awake yet, or whether this is a very realistic dream. But then his uncle storms back with two plates of Vivi’s pre-prepared food, microwaved hot, and he figures it must be real enough. It’s too logically consistent. He watches steam rise up off of what looks to be lasagna and wonders how long it’ll take before he can manage to pass out again.

“Somethin’s missin,’” his old man declares, just before he ambles away again. He returns not long after with his left arm stacked with blankets. Galahad peeps up over the fingers of his right.

“Hey, Gally,” Arthur soothes, watching with a sad sort of fondness as Lance brings him close. The little guy scampers and wheels from Lance’s palm to his, and sits there looking up, chuffing adorably at him.

Gally is literally the best.

“Been doing a lot of research on prosthetics, little dude. I bet I’ve got a way to make those wheels a little more comfortable for you,” he babbles without much thought, just letting himself enjoy it when his hamster rolls across his lap and nestles into his stomach.

“Haven’t seen you take him back to the workshop lately,” Lance muses. He’s slung all the blankets over the couch next to Arthur and is gingerly taking a seat in the armchair. Arthur knows the old mechanic gets sore after working long days. He wonders whether the dummy hurt himself playing around earlier.

“No,” he agrees, “I don’t really trust that I can stop him getting into something dangerous with just the one hand.” Besides, he’s clumsier than usual and he can’t always avoid hurting himself as he works. If he accidentally slipped and injured his poor hamster, he’d never forgive himself.

Lance glances at the space where his arm used to be, and stabs his lasagna with force. He takes his time to chew and think over his words.

“Arthur, I hate what happened to you somethin' fierce. It ain't easy, and it’s not fair. But it ain’t the end of the world. You know that, right?”

“…”

He knows Lance doesn’t mean anything by it. Or rather, he knows what Lance _does_ mean to say. But all he can think is, _it’s not like you’re dead, but Lewis is. You lost your arm, you lost Lewis’s life, and you lost Vivi’s heart. It’s all you._

_It’s not fair_ , his thoughts echo, _it’s not right_.

“Arthur?” he blinks, and realizes belatedly that his lashes are wet. Lance and Gally are both watching him with mild distress. Galahad’s tiny claws are scraping gently against his shirt, trying to get his attention.

“Sure,” he finally chokes. His voice is rough. He presses his face into the back of the couch and wills himself to stop crying. Except… the couch smells like Vivi. She’s been crashing on his couch for god knows how long, so it shouldn’t come as such a surprise, but… it smells like her, and it _hurts_ because she’s too good to him. He doesn’t deserve her when Lewis is literally dead by his hand. He doesn’t deserve to live and it’s not fair. It’s not fair.

“Aw, kid… shit. I shoulda’ kept my damn mouth shut.”

“No, no you’re right. It’s fine.” He makes himself sit up straight, and tries to force himself not to think. He’d be more convincing if he could keep his voice from hitching. Lance sets his plate down and crosses to him in just a few strides. He reaches out— “It’s fine, really. I just. I… did you already lock the workshop? Because I need something to do. I need to—” Lance leans down and hugs his nephew. He pats awkwardly at Arthur’s hair and tries to let him know that he’s not alone.

“Who the hell taught you you weren’t allowed to be upset? Because it sure as shit wasn’t me.”  Arthur shrugs. “Obviously it ain’t fine. So what’s the point pretending like it is?” he shrugs again. They stay that way for a while, with Lance’s thoughts churning and Arthur trying to keep himself together. He indulges in the feeling of human contact until Galahad starts to get fidgety. The little guy squeaks in annoyance, and he knows that’s enough. Arthur backs away and breathes deep.

He expects his uncle to walk back to the chair, but Lance stays hunched over in front of him, peering into his face. Arthur’s just about to ask what the old man finds so fascinating when he blurts, “There’s more to it than the arm, ain’t there.”

He freezes before he can think better of it. Close as he is there’s no way Lance won’t notice.

He’s spent a long time agonizing over the thought of Vivi remembering that night, of her learning what he’d allowed to happen. Somehow he’d never really put much thought into Lance figuring things out first. Anxiety shallows his breath and ties his stomach in knots, lets them sit heavy and twisted in the center of his chest. He… nods

“Vivi’s here every night like she’s afraid you’ll disappear when she’s not lookin’, but I ain’t seen Lewis in a long time. Struck me as odd, but I didn’t know how to ask.”  Arthur clenches his eyes shut tight, and tries to beat back the wave of heartache that threatens him. He misses Lewis so much, he can’t stand it. He hadn’t realized until now that he’d missed something as simple as hearing his best friend’s name said aloud. “Did those two break up, or—”

“ _Please_ , Lance don’t—he’s… gone. Lewis is g-gone,” He feels a sob caught in his throat and fights it back. He can’t—he doesn’t want to think about this.

“…gone.” Lance echoes. Arthur can’t bear to look at him anymore. He can’t bear to _be here_. He picks Galahad up, tries to set the little guy aside. He’s got to get upstairs. Lance isn’t going to let him into the workshop, but he’s still got his laptop and he just wants to _not think_.

His uncle stops him. He reaches over, artfully disorders the blankets until they might make an intriguing little maze for a hamster, and gently sets Gally among them. Then, he sits down next to Arthur on the couch, and pulls him into a fierce embrace.

He can’t help wondering whether Lance would still want to do this if he knew it was all Arthur’s fault.

He lets himself fall apart anyway. He feels lost, and small, and Lance is here, so—it’s the easiest thing in the world to break down. He’s so tired of trying to hold it back.

He didn’t realize it before but… that night, with Lance rocking him back and forth and the lasagna quickly going cold on the coffee table? It’s the first time he’s really cried since the cave.


	3. The Light I Used to Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...  
>  *looks at chapter numbers  
> *looks at word count  
> Okay, look. You know how I thought this was going to be like... 9000 words maybe and there were only two scenes left? Well....  
> I'm just doin my best out here. Don't judge.

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur doesn’t sleep easy anymore. He tries not to sleep at all, when he can get away with it. Eventually, utter exhaustion kicks him under, and he finds himself face down on the nearest flat surface. That’s fine. If he’s so exhausted he can’t dream, that’s fine. If he lets himself drift away any other way, he…

He finds himself back in the cave.  It’s such a familiar memory now—it’s burned into him, like a rut in his mind that he just can’t help tracing over and over again.

The dreams aren't always true to the memory. Sometimes they are. Sometimes things go surreal half-way through. Sometimes he manages to throw the possession, but he falls to his death instead. Lewis always just stares impassively down and watches him fall.

Sometimes, he watches the thing in his body overpower Mystery, creep down to the place where Vivi sits crying, and reach out to snap her neck. She doesn’t fight it. She just looks at him with that same, terribly blank face she wears every time she almost remembers Lewis. And he—can’t do anything at all to make it stop. She dies, and she asks him, “why?”

But this time, with Lewis’s death so fresh on his mind, it’s closer to a memory than a dream.

There’s a weight in his head, pressure all through his spine that resonates up from his left hand. He instantly recognizes the sick feel of that thing’s hold on his mind. He’ll never forget it. It’s a terrible, powerless feeling—like sludge, flooding his thoughts and his soul, making him feel like he’ll never be clean again.

 ** _Come on, deep down, you want this, don’t you? You want to hurt him like you’ve hurt._** It doesn’t matter how hard he argues with the voice or how much he fights against it. The demon always wins. **_Y **o** u make it so easy. Such a pathetic soul. I’ll make you strong. I’ll make you better. _**He doesn’t _want_ to be better. The demon doesn’t care.

He feels the fabric of Lewis’s jacket under his fingers, the warmth of his body— _god_ —and he—Lewis looks so betrayed when he falls. He’s so hurt—he doesn’t understand _why_. And Arthur will never get to tell him.

He has to watch Lewis break against the stalagmites below. His mind tortures him, plays every bit of it in slow motion—stone ripping through flesh and bone, savagely distorting the Lewis’s form but _it wasn’t an instant death_ , fuck—He’s is still in pain and _twitching_ for what feels like forever, trying to gasp for breath around the pillar of stone that spears his lungs. His mouth moves in a litany of “ _why?”_ as he slowly, _slowly_ falls still. 

Mystery waits for him to watch it all before he leans in and yanks Arthur’s arm backward.

“ _It should have been you_ ,” the beast rumbles, and Arthur thinks for one hysterical moment that there’s no way he could talk so eloquently with his mouth full. “ _It should have been you_!” and it’s not just Mystery talking, but Vivi, Lewis, all at once.

“I know!” he answers, and wakes himself up shouting it aloud. “I know,” he whimpers, because it’s true.  

Arthur pushes his face against something soft and tries to figure out where he is. He’s shaking and gasping for breath as he comes back to reality. Even in dreams, the sensation of his arm tearing away from his body still feels as visceral and sharp as the first time.  He has to struggle past imagined pain, forcing himself upright.

He finds himself half-buried in the couch, covered in the blankets Lance had found last night. Arthur has a ridiculously difficult time extricating himself from his quilt cocoon.  He manages to get his arm and most of his torso free when he notices the blanket and pillow crumpled in the armchair nearby. Had Lance… slept in the living room last night?

That’s… he doesn’t know what to think about that. He doesn’t know what to think about much really. All he knows is that his eyes hurt, and his head aches, and the place where his arm used to be feels raw and open with phantom pain. Sometimes he thinks he’s just disintegrating in the slowest way possible.

Arthur has to wait out the weakness of his body before he can even think about standing. He swivels to get his feet on the floor and before he can fight with his legs, he notices the handwritten note on the coffee table.

> _Arthur,_
> 
> _Had to run to work. Galahad’s back in his space upstairs. Didn’t want him getting into anything while you were out of it._
> 
> _Don’t think I forgot you didn’t eat last night! There’s some kind of fruit salad in the top shelf of the fridge; you damn well better eat some of it as soon as you wake up._
> 
> _Please call me at the shop if you need anything._
> 
> _-Love you, kid.  
>  Lance_

It’s nice to know his uncle cares, he guesses. But the note just makes him remember what happened last night, and that’s… he doesn’t know.

Everyone says people feel better after they cry. Arthur’s not sure he agrees. There’s a strange, tired heat behind his eyes, a heaviness in his head and he just feels… hollowed out. Worn down. He doesn’t really have the energy to be embarrassed, he’s just…

Vivi and Mystery are away and Lance is at work, and Lewis is dead is dead is dead. Arthur is alone again. He’s growing used to the feeling.

For the last…however long, he’s avoided feeling it. He’s thrown himself into his work and blocked out everything that way. But what’s the point in that? What’s the point in running away? What’s the point in anything, really?

He sits there, staring at his uncle’s note for far longer than he should, until his neck is stiff with the position. He doesn’t know what comes next. He feels like a marionette with the strings cut.

His stomach growls, and he remembers Lance’s admonishment to eat. Alright, well. It’s something. He stands, puts one foot in front of the other like a wind-up soldier. He certainly feels like one, trekking to the fridge because Lance said so, because he just doesn’t know what else to do.  Reach out, grab the fridge door and find the fruit. Hold the container. Collect a fork—everything is a series of commands, operations for him to execute. So he does. And after he’s finished the last damn bite, and places his dishes in the sink, he….he notices the stack of envelopes balanced neatly beside the fridge.

Odd. That’s where Lance puts bills, isn’t it? There’s not usually that many—did he forget to sort the mail or something…?

Confusion manages to intrude on Arthur’s robotic haze, and he reaches out to examine the first one without thinking.  “ _Tempo Regional Medical Center”_ reads the name in the top left corner, and he feels his heart abruptly plummet to his stomach. He drops it, picks up the next envelope, and the next—they’re all the same. Every single one is addressed to Lance, from the hospital or their insurance company or—

Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe this is… something else? He digs for one of the envelopes Lance has already opened and lifts out folded paper with his breath caught in his throat. It’s— _God,_ that’s a lot of money. And sure enough, the date of treatment falls right around the time they went to the _damn_ cave.

He feels himself hit the floor before he realizes he’s falling. His knees protest the sudden impact, but he scarcely notices. He’s too busy tearing open bill after bill, staring at the amounts owed in horror. He’d been so caught up in himself, he hadn’t even thought about how much saving his sorry life had cost—he didn’t think about— _shit_ , how was Lance going to afford this? Arthur didn’t have much saved up, and it wasn’t like he had a life insurance plan, so even if Vivi _didn’t_ need him, he couldn’t… He didn’t have any way to pay this. Even if he went out and got a job immediately he wouldn’t be able to pay it back for quite some time, and that was assuming someone was willing to hire an employee with only one… arm…

The arm.

He’s got the arm. And if he’s right about his design, he’s got the prototype for the world’s most advanced robotic prosthetic. That’s got to be worth something, right? He’s just—he’s just got to test as much out as he can without surgery, and finish the blueprints.

He’s still dead tired, but he summons enough energy to race back into the workshop. Lance never deserved to have to deal with his messes, but a least this is one he might be able to fix.

 

* * *

 

Before, when Vivi asked him how long the arm would take, he’d thought he wanted to drag it out forever. Maybe he still does. It feels _good_ to put himself under with work, let the physical and the mental wash away everything else.

It’s just that now he has a goal. There’s s _omething_ he can do to try to make his existence more worthwhile to everyone around him. He got Lewis killed and he ruined Viv’s life, and god knows why Lance ever stepped in to take care of him, but he can do this. He can pay them back, if he just… keeps working.

Lance maintains Vivi’s nightly rituals while she’s away. He tromps into the workshop every day the moment he gets in from work, and doesn’t take, “Just a second” for an answer. He drags Arthur out by force, if necessary. Then, he sits him down and _makes_ him eat, with the threat of calling Vivi’s emergency number hanging over his head like an executioner’s blade. It chafes.

Maybe there’s a part of him that relishes the attention. But more than that he’s confused. The stack of envelopes by the fridge only grows larger, and Lance doesn’t seem to care at all. Shouldn’t he resent Arthur, just a little bit? He knows he’s being difficult, and he knows Lance is tired. The man comes home late every day; shit, is he picking up extra hours to cover Arthur’s medical expenses? That’s—He _must_ resent Arthur. Maybe he’s just good at hiding it. Maybe—maybe this is all just part of some kind of obligation Lance convinced himself he’s beholden to, a baseline of dedication he thinks all family deserves.

Lance is just doing this because he thinks he has to, but he doesn’t. Arthur really can keep working. It’s not like he’s going to sleep anyway, with the sorts of things he dreams. He lets Lance push him around, and when his back is turned he…. Well. He’s teaching himself biomechanics with little to no trouble. Forging a key for that little lock is far simpler in comparison. He’s still debating whether or not he should use it the day Vivi gets back.

“Arty! I’m home!” her voice echoes out from the front door, and for a moment he thinks it’s only in his head. Is it strange that something in him had just been waiting for her to walk out on him? He’s used to the leaving. Not so much the return.

Viv’s here, and that’s…. more than he deserves. But he needs to finish this. He’s so close to a breakthrough. He _has_ to be. There was a new name in the pile of envelopes this morning—some kind of psych place he didn’t even remember visiting. But apparently they’d done an eval or something because there’s another $500 charge on the bottom line.

“Arthur. Artimur. Arty-Arty-oxenfree—” Vivi sweeps into the workshop, threading a trail of nonsense in her wake. She appears just in time to see him slot another component of his attempted sensory array into place. If he could just get it to fit so that he’d still have room for the battery, he could—“Ooh! Hey, looks like you got a lot done while we were out. “

“Mmhm.” He mumbles. He’s still distracted—he wants to know if he’s got it right this time. His design has everything fitting within a hair’s breadth, so if he’s just a little off with his measurements… and that’s pretty much inevitable. It’s not like he’s got a lot of advanced equipment to work with.

“Is that like, a stand for it? That probably makes your life easier, huh.”

“Mm,” For now though, even without the battery, if he hooks it up to a wall connection he can still make sure everything moves right. He can probably even test the myoelectric systems if he sets up a temporary program to track the movements of his right arm. Maybe if he—

“Alright. Nope. I just got back, and you’re going to come eat dinner with me.”

“Vivi, I just need one more second to—”

“Nope.” He doesn’t really struggle against her. He doesn’t know how to. She takes his tools straight from his hand, loops the apron off from around his neck, and starts wiping grease off his face with her fingers. She—he can feel her breath on his cheek.

“V-Viv?” he asks, and doesn’t know what he’s asking. All he knows is the color of her eyes behind tinted lenses, the way the light catches in the strands of her hair. He doesn’t—he’s got to calm down. She doesn’t mean it like he would, she doesn’t—

“Missed you, dork,” she announces as she pulls him abruptly forward and buries her face in his chest. Her palms feel so _warm_ against his back.

“I—” Vivi doesn’t know what she’s doing to him, he reminds himself. She’s his best friend, and she needs him. She was lonely without him this week. She’s not stupidly pining. And if he doesn’t say something in return, he’s going to hurt her. Arthur rests his hand across her shoulders and lets his chin brush her hair. “Missed you too,” he confesses, words little louder than a whisper. He tells himself he’s just keeping her happy, but he thinks of Lewis and he feels sick inside.

“Come on! I’ve got a ton to tell you.” She pulls away abruptly _without_ clocking him in the jaw, and loops her fingers with his.

It’s easy and familiar, the way she leads him around with his heart pounding in his ears. When she pauses to lock the workshop, he catches a glimpse of Mystery in the living room. Arthur nods toward him and manages to remember not to be terrified. He only hallucinates the feeling of his arm tearing away for a second or two.

“—and then,” Vivi is talking to him. Has she been talking the whole time? He’s been completely distracted by the feeling of her hand in his. “I remembered that the place had a paid overnight tour during the Halloween season. And I thought, well, the owner kept going _on_ about poltergeists but I’m not feeling anything here that could be a poltergeist—sit, Arthur, I got takeout for us—You know I hate to mistrust people, but there’s no denying the guy has a vested interest in his property being haunted, and you know how _that_ usually goes.” She shuffles him over to the kitchen table as she spins her tale, moving immediately to find plates and silverware. She reaches for everything with a sense of familiarity that almost hurts; has she really been looking after him for long enough to learn where Lance keeps the serving spoons by heart?

Arthur watches her move. He can hardly do anything else—she’s as hypnotizing as she’s ever been. _God_ , he missed her, and he knows that’s stupid. He doesn’t have the right to miss her. She obviously had a blast on that case without him and his stupid heart can’t decide whether to be thankful or terrified for it.

“So I figured the rattling beds and the flying objects were probably the bog-standard haunted house set pieces, and sure enough he’s got magnets and little latches and levers all _over_ the place. The only thing I couldn’t really figure out was the way he got the lights to flicker every time I asked a ‘ghost’ questions.” Vivi’s wandering back toward the living room as she talks. He can hear the rustling of plastic, and he figures that’s the takeout she mentioned before. He finds himself drawn into the tale, musing aloud before he even knows he’s doing it.

“He’d just have to barely unscrew the bulbs and leave them on to get the lights to flicker. Maybe more complicated if he wanted more control over it, but…”Arthur trails off. Not because he’s realized he’s rambling, but because he knows with a sudden horror exactly where Vivi got takeout from. He can smell it—that familiar spicy aroma, and he—he’s got to be wrong, right?

“See, this is why I wished I had you along the whole time, Arty!” She places a white plastic bag bulging with food on the table and starts setting down all-too-familiar aluminum containers. “You could have figured this guy out way faster than I did. You gotta come with us next case.” He’s supposed to respond, he knows that, but he can’t. She’s doling the dishes out, three on the table, one left aside for Lance, and he….

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t remember, so she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Arthur tries to bear the horrible, twisting sensation in his chest and wonders if this is what a broken heart feels like.

“I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just thought… The whole time I was there, all I could think about was how much I wished I had you with me.” Vivi sees the look on his face, and doesn’t understand the reason for it. Arthur knows he should correct her, but he—

“Why four plates?” he croaks, and his voice sticks in his throat. Vivi looks at him with that damned, empty-eyed gaze and he knows _exactly_ why.

The soft jingle of a collar announces Mystery’s entrance as he slinks in with his head held low. Arthur is no expert on canine body language, but he assumes that glance is supposed to be apologetic.

“I just,” Vivi starts, but her stare is distant. “This is what we always order from Pepper Paradiso, isn’t it? Coconut curry for me, the mildest thing on the menu that day for your baby tongue, and… Lance still likes their house burrito, doesn’t he?”

He knows he shouldn’t. He knows what Mystery says. But he’s so _tired_ of this ache. He doesn’t _want_ to hold on to Lewis’s memory in secret. He doesn’t care if it means he’ll have to tell her the truth—or if she wants to leave him after he just—just can’t stand feeling like he’s killing the _memory_ of Lewis too.

“What about the fourth plate, Viv?”  He tries again, because he’s selfish and because this is killing him. He hears Mystery growling softly nearby, but he can’t bring himself to stop. Not even the phantom pain of his arm gives him pause.

“Well, that’s the Chocolate Bhut Jolokia Special for—uh…” He watches her fall into the nearest chair, fingers pressing at her brow. “I don’t…”

 “Please, Vivi, you _know_ who it’s for, you’ve got to—” Mystery is _definitely_ growling a warning at him, but all he can see is Vivi’s dead expression. He can’t—his throat feels too tight, and his hand is shaking, but he just—Arthur slips out of the chair and lets his shins hit the floor hard. He crawls to her, kneels in the floor at her feet. He doesn’t know whether she can actually see him, so he reaches out for her hand and holds it tight. “Do you remember back in middle school, when you got suspended for fighting?”

The change of subject seems to help. She blinks. Her gaze snaps to his.

“Yeah… Yeah, how could I forget? Dad tried to ground me for life.”

“Do you remember why you punched that kid?” He holds her hand as tight as he dares, lets himself sit far closer than her than he ever has before. Every bit of him is _begging_ her to remember.

“Arthur I’m not sure where you’re going with this. Are you okay? Wait, why are you on the floor—”

“Vivi, please just—for me, just—why did you punch him?”

“Well,” she thinks back, and for a moment he watches old indignation flicker across her expression. “That little cretin deserved it. He was making fun of L—making fun of s-someone for being _adopted_.” Almost. _God_. He grits his teeth.

“Do you remember your first kiss? You came over and cried on my couch after, because the whole time, you just kept wishing that guy was someone else.”

“Jeeze, Art way to bring up the good memories. Where are you going with these? And seriously, why are you on the floor?” She tries to pull away from his grasp, but he just holds tighter. He can see those damned magenta pinpricks of light, sparking behind her glasses.

“You were so upset. You kept telling me you wished it was him—do you remember who?” Her face falls. She starts to look frightened, and he hates that for her, but he—he can’t keep pretending.

“I—I don’t—”

“Do you remember—do you remember all the times we went over to the Peppers’ place to help babysit their kids? He was always so much better at it than either of us. Sometimes I wondered whether we were actually making things harder on him.” Her face is completely blank, and the light in her eyes is just getting brighter. Arthur can’t stand it. He rests his face against her knees and forces himself not to cry. “Do you remember who talked us into performing at the high school talent show senior year? And god, I was such a wreck, but you and him were—you guys were so perfect.”

“Arthur I don’t—I don’t understand.” She sounds so afraid. He feels a drop of moisture on the back of his wrist and can’t bear to look up.

“There was somebody important. We had someone really important. He—he was a total dork, and he could play the violin, and his voice—Viv, you—do you remember his voice?” She’s not answering, but he can’t stop.  “Do you remember—you told me you lost someone you don’t know. You _told_ me, and I know it hurts. I’m trying to help—I just want—”

“Arthur,” Mystery warns, but he _doesn’t care_. Mystery could snap his neck in his jaws right now, and he wouldn’t care.

“His name was _Lewis_. His name was Lewis, and you loved him more than anything. He loved you more than life and I—I k-killed him. I—”

“Arthur!” The spirit interrupts him with a resounding bark that sends the hairs of his neck on end and makes his bones rattle. “She can’t hear you anymore.” Sure enough, when he dares to glance up, she’s lying passed out on the table. Only luck saved her from face planting in curry. Occasionally, hot pink slips out in tiny bolts of lightning from her eyelashes. They cast odd reflections against the aluminum of the takeout tins.

Arthur sits on the floor at her feet and tries desperately not to fall apart. He wants to weep. He wants to scream. He wants to fall asleep and never wake up again.

“That was poorly done of you,” Mystery sniffs, voice as dry as anything. “I told you she shouldn’t be reminded for a reason.” He did. He did. But Arthur had just thought—he’d just wanted…

He should be used to it by now. It doesn’t matter what he wants.

Arthur clenches his eyes shut and fights hard for breath. He waits until he’s almost mastered himself to scramble to his feet.

“She’ll be okay, right?” he asks, but it doesn’t sound much like a question. Mystery wouldn’t be this blasé if she needed help.

“I’ll keep an eye on her, but she should be right as rain in a few hours. Just don’t try this one again, understand?” He feels his fist tighten of its own volition, grasps with enough pressure to feel his nails dig painfully in to the skin of his palm.

“Got it.” His voice is horse with tears unshed. They don’t matter. He doesn’t matter.

Vivi said she needed him.

He’s starting to think she’d be better off with him gone. 

Arthur puts his forged key in the workshop door and wonders if he can work until he forgets his own name.


	4. Slip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd got it. Next chapter is two scenes and this thing is done-aroo.
> 
> I would especially appreciate some comment feedback on this one; I had to pack a lot in at once, and I'm not sure about the feel of it. I think I had a hard time balancing the pace, which is part of what took me so long to post. 
> 
> ///*TW* Suicide attempt. Careful with that, ya'll. *TW*///

* * *

 

 

Lance gets home even later than usual. Arthur isn't really listening for him, so he doesn’t hear whatever conversation occurs in the kitchen. He’s busily wiring the arm into his laptop for diagnostic when the workshop door eases open. Focused on his work, he may not have even noticed the extra company except… The haunting smell of the Peppers’ cooking wafts through the door behind his uncle. Arthur hangs his head and battles a wave of nausea.

“So,” Lance starts. He sounds utterly perplexed. “Vivi’s back.” Arthur doesn’t know what to say to that, so he simply nods. He twists two wires together between his fingers, reaches out for a piece of electric tape. Even _tape_ had been difficult to figure out one-handed, but he’s got a self-made system for that too now. It’s just a simple rack. Adhere the tail of the tape to one end, roll to the other, and cut with a letter opener. No problem. A lot of tasks are like that for him now.

“She brought Pepper Paradiso home, huh?” Arthur grits his teeth, breathes through his nose. He drops the letter opener back down to the workbench and starts rolling tape around wire. “Arthur, I asked her about Lewis.” He can’t help the bitter sound that escapes him. He feels like he’s going to choke on it.

“Bet that went well.” His voice is far too rough for his words to seem casual.  Lance shoots him the sort of parental _look_ he can feel on the back of his neck. He tries not to let it stop him. There’s another couple of wires to connect so he reaches out, lays them straight, starts to twist the ends in his fingers.

“…This is some kinda spooky paranormal bullshit, ain’t it.” Lance had always hated the adventures Vivi loved so much. He’d been trying to convince them to pursue a career change since their very first case. Arthur wondered what he thought about all of it now. He’d always said things would end poorly, and he’d been right, hadn’t he? Arthur had gotten himself hurt, and Lance was landed with the hospital bills. Lewis was gone, and Vivi was broken—maybe this is where it starts. Maybe now that he knows there’s something extraordinary involved, he’ll start resenting Arthur like he’s supposed to.

“Something like that,” Arthur allows. He touches the last two wires together, and they meet with a soft, popping sound and a tiny wave of sparks. Each pinpoint of heat brushes the tips of his fingers. He doesn’t flinch. He scarcely feels it.

“Arthur Kingsman,” his uncle sounds positively furious and he thinks… here it is. Here’s the moment where he kicks his idiot, ungrateful, expensive fool of a nephew out for good. “Are you working on that wiring with the electricity still _on_? What the hell have I taught you, kid?”

He tries to comprehend the words. He feels the tape drop clumsily from his hand as he wonders what just happened.

“Sorry, just—I—what?”

“Come on Art. Smart kid like you knows better’n to wire something up while it’s still runnin’. You shock your fool self, and you damn well better believe I’ll ban you from this workshop.” Lance lays a firm hand on his shoulder, and reaches past him to unplug his creation from the wall-socket. “Now come on, time to call it a night.”

He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t want to go back out there and he _can’t_ face Vivi again. He guesses he could take the laptop and start filing all the patent paperwork he’s been putting off, but the thought of walking back into the kitchen is just…

“Lance, I—I need to work on this.” He sees his uncle’s brow furrow deeper, watches the way he plants his feet. He knows the man’s thinking about carrying him away from his work again. “ _Please_ , Lance, it’s just _one_ goddamn night. I’m losing my mind out there and I—I just.” Arthur breathes deep and steels his voice. He feels desperate, but somehow he figures Lance won’t respond well if he really acts the way he feels. He’s a mess. “I just want, for _one night_ to lose myself in something that’s real, and mindless.”

His uncle doesn’t say anything for a few moments. Just stares Arthur down in the bright fluorescent light of the workshop. His hand on Arthur’s shoulder feels almost like a vice.

“Guess it’s better’n drinkin’ to forget.” Lance mumbles, but Arthur doesn’t think he was supposed to hear it. “If I bring you some food, you promise me you’ll eat it?”

He can’t help himself. He just… stares at his old man. Is Lance really listening to him?

“Y-yeah,” he stumbles over himself to answer. “Promise.”

“And you’ll be more goddamn _careful_ with your electrical work? If I find out you electrocuted yerself, I _swear to god_ , Arthur—”

“Yes! I’ll be careful. I’m not a complete invalid, Lance,” he can’t help his knee-jerk indignation, but it’s distant, out of place. He kind of can’t believe his Uncle’s really going to let him—

“Alright. But this is a _one time thing_ , you get me? You’re gonna sleep tomorrow one way or another.” He remembers, dimly, in the time before Vivi started sleeping over, when he’d buried himself in the workshop for weeks and existed as little more than a ghost in Lance’s life.  Maybe that’s what his uncle’s so afraid of. He wonders why.

“Sure,” Arthur assents, and wisely does not mention the forged key in his back pocket.

 

* * *

 

After that, things go mostly back to normal. Or, well, the new normal. Vivi comes back down to earth and forgets his desperate attempt to remind her of what she’s lost. Lance figures out that this whole situation resulted from some kind of paranormal mess, and he learns to leave the memory of Lewis well enough alone. Mystery still haunts the corners of his house and walks a thin line between annoyance at Arthur’s fear and worry for his health.

Arthur just… doesn’t really know what to do. He keeps moving through the motions, lets them pull him around and think they’re fixing things, when really he’s… He can’t stand this. He can’t stand _himself_. He feels stupid, and weak, and like he’s just dragging everyone else down. He worries about Vivi. He feels like he needs to make things okay for Lance. But other than that, he…

It feels a little like the world is bathed in gray. Like he’ll never see color again, except in horrible nightmares filled with _green_. Sometimes he hallucinates that the thing that made him kill Lewis lurks in his mind, just waiting for him to drop his guard. When he’s at his lowest, just on the edge of passing out, he swears he can hear it.

He probably needs to sleep more. Even _he’s_ starting to believe that.

The arm is nearing completion, or as least as close to complete as he can make it without the necessary surgeries. He needs more degrees of freedom to make his prototype the best on the market, and for that, he would need nerve replacement, wireless implants, osseointegration… A lot of expensive work that he and Lance will never have enough money to afford.

Lately, he's started thinking that he should give up on the arm. He can just finish all his patent paperwork, shop his ideas around, sell his blueprints, and wire Lance the money. He doesn’t really need the arm himself. This was only ever supposed to be a project he could use to ignore reality, so if he's going to move on... what's the point? Even without the best possible prosthetic, he could still go back to work in the shop. After spending these last few… months? relearning everything one-handed, he doesn’t think he _needs_ the arm for mechanical work.

Things aren’t okay. Nothing will ever be okay again, but it’s… something? He thinks he can live with it.

He almost believes that.

 

* * *

 

Though his memories of the cave haunt him with far too much clarity, Arthur has trouble recalling his days in the hospital immediately afterward. He remembers, vaguely, talking to the police in a haze of shock. He thinks he might have talked to the Peppers back then too, but he had been out of his mind with grief and terror, not to mention the pain meds. He doesn’t quite… remember…. Certainly someone must have told them about Viv. He’s vaguely aware that, legally, Lewis is missing presumed dead. Someone must have told him at some point during all of that. Maybe Mystery? He hadn’t cared to look deeper into it. All he knows for certain is that eventually, the police and the well-wishers had stopped coming by his hospital room and he… he’d had to live with it.

All of that to say, he doesn’t know how much information the Peppers really have. He _does_ know that when his cell phone rings for the first time in months, it feels as though the floor has disappeared beneath his feet. He hears the jaunty tune of a ring assigned to Lewis ages ago, and for a moment he thinks it must be a ghost come to torment him. It takes him far longer than it should to remember there’s a landline assigned to Lew’s contact information.

The thought of speaking to Lewis’s parents doesn’t frighten him less. Arthur hesitates, pulse racing until he can feel each heartbeat in his ears. He picks up at the last possible instant with a clumsy hand.

“Hello?” he can scarcely manage the word. He feels like he’s going to hyperventilate.

“Arthur! It’s so good to hear you awake.” Mr. Pepper’s voice doesn’t make sense at first. He’s stuck in time, wrapped up in a tidal wave of guilt and terror. He doesn’t know what’s worse: the thought that he might have to rehash that night, or the idea that he’ll have to lie to Lewis’s father about everything.

“Y-yeah,” he manages to stutter, stomach churning. He should have expected this. He should have made the call himself forever ago, but he’s been so caught up in his own head….

Lewis’s family had always treated him and Viv as their own, for as long as he’d known them. It had always shocked and scared him in equal measure, how easily they truly, genuinely seemed to care. He hadn’t known what to do with it. Now it just makes him feel even heavier with the weight of what’s happened. He sinks against his workbench, lets the wood push uncomfortably into the space beneath his ribs.

“We were worried about you kids. You weren’t doing so hot, and Vivi was…”

“She’s still like that.” Arthur blurts before he can stop himself. He hates to say it and he hates that it’s true. “She doesn’t—she can’t remember him.” There’s half a beat of silence. He thinks he can hear the chaos of Pepper Paradiso’s kitchens. Mr. Pepper’s breath doesn’t sound quite even either.

“But, that means you do, right?” and there it is, the edge of distress in Mr. Pepper’s voice. He can’t imagine the shape of it—what they must feel—what Arthur had taken from them.

“Yeah,” his voice shudders mid-word. He feels like he’s falling from a great height: unanchored, muted roar in his ears, no way to find his feet.

“Arthur, I—I don’t want to make you hurt any more than you must be already. You don’t—I don’t need any details. I just have to know for sure. Is my son—is my son dead?” Arthur’s jaw clenches, the muscles of his neck stiffen. He has to bite his tongue to keep the words inside. ( _He’s dead, he’s dead, and it’s my hand that killed him—)_ “It’s selfish of me, I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I _need_ to know—.”

“Yes,” He sobs, because he owes them at least that. He owes them so much more. He owes them a life. “Yes.”

“I see,” Mr. Pepper sighs. It seems a strange sound, despair and relief all packaged in the same breath. “I guess… The police did say… I just hoped…” Arthur pushes his rib cage against the workbench until he thinks he must be bruising. He doesn’t deserve this kind of concern from Lewis’s father. Lew’s dead, and he’s the _goddamn murderer_ , intentional or not, and he just—

Why can’t other people see it? Why don’t they hate him as much as he hates himself? He can’t—

“Is there—God, I… Is there any way we could get his body back?” Mr. Pepper sounds _shattered_. Arthur doesn’t—he doesn’t know how to answer. He hadn’t thought to ask about…. Mystery mentioned sealing that thing in the cave. He imagines the spell trapped Lewis’s corpse back there alongside it. The idea occurs to him amidst a sense of dawning horror. It crosses his mind and won’t leave—he can see Lewis’s broken form on the rocks all too well. _God_ , ribs and torn innards and blood, and he—they’d left him behind, empty though he was. They’d left him for the wild creatures of the cave and the putrefaction of rot.  Arthur fights not to gag.

“I—I—” he stutters. He doesn’t know what to say. “I don’t—I can’t—”

“Right. No, Sorry Arthur. That was… I’m out of line. Sorry.” Arthur bites hard at the inside of his cheek and clenches his teeth. He feels like the worst kind of scum. He’s too much of a coward and a fool to come up with the right things to say, but Mr. Pepper is the one apologizing. Mr. Pepper is trying to comfort his son’s killer, and he doesn’t even know. Arthur can’t do this any longer. He has to—he has to say _something_.

“Mr. Pepper, I—”

“It’s okay. Really.” He can hear the tears in the poor man’s voice that belie his words. He hates this. He hates himself. “You and Vivi…. You better not be strangers, you hear? He wouldn’t have wanted—he wouldn’t have wanted us to lose touch.”

“No,” he echoes. He doesn't know what part of all of this he wants to negate, but it’s the only word he can manage. “No.” He wishes he could cry. He doesn’t remember how. Instead, he sits there, useless, his lips mouthing words he can’t say against the receiver.

“Come back soon,” Mr. Pepper sounds like he’s about to break down, and Arthur thinks this must be what it feels like to die inside. His single moment of weakness had cost too many people too much, and it just doesn’t stop. He hadn’t even really been thinking about Lewis’s parents. He’s been so caught up in his own pain, he—

He doesn’t deserve to be alive.

“Are you makin’ that poor boy upset when I _told_ you—” He can only just hear Mrs. Pepper laying into her husband in the background as he hangs up. Arthur feels his phone slip from nerveless fingers. He sits there, crushing himself against the workbench, clinging to it like a lifeboat in a storm.

He can’t do this anymore.

He’ll finish the arm. He’ll fix things for Lance and then… that’s it.

People still care about him, but Lewis had cared too, and look where that got him.

He just—can’t keep this up. He refuses.

 

* * *

 

 

It doesn’t take as long as he thought it would to hear back about patents and shop his designs around. The industry takes to his work with a rapacity that frankly surprises him. One or two research institutions even offer him a job. He could almost laugh. If he wasn’t so set on this, he could have taken them up on the offer and started really paying Lance back. Maybe send some of his earnings to the Peppers. Give Viv a fund for her hunts that she could afford to lean back on occasionally…

Too late for that. His mind’s already made up.

And he really has made his mind up. Arthur had never been the most impulsive person. He takes his time and really thinks the whole thing through from all the angles he can.

Vivi says she needs him, but that can't possibly be true. She has Mystery, and her cases, and she’s always been so much stronger than him. She _says_ she needs him, and she might even believe it, but he should know better. He’d just wanted so badly to be needed—to have a reason to stick around. Stupid.

Mystery would probably be upset, but Vivi has always been the spirit’s primary concern. He calls Arthur “friend,” but Arthur’s sure his existence has no serious bearing on Mystery’s life.

He’ll hurt Lance for sure, but the old mechanic will get over it before long. His uncle doesn’t _really_ need him. He can run the garage alone well enough, and he’ll probably have an easier time of things without having to worry about a second mouth to feed. Maybe he can finally stop being a burden on the man.

Gally would be sad. Poor little guy doesn’t even like it when he leaves for a few days. He hates to disappoint his hamster, but he knows he can trust the others to pick up his slack. Galahad will live a long, happy hamster life full of free-wheeling adventures. Hysterically, Arthur muses that his only lingering regret is his failure to complete Gally’s new wheel redesign. What an odd thing to lament. 

On some level, he knows this whole thing is selfish. He’s just so tired, he doesn't think he cares any more. Besides, maybe it’s _not_ selfish. Maybe there’s a tiny part of him that started to believe, somewhere between his parents and Lewis, that he brings misfortune to everyone he loves. Logically, he knows it for a ridiculous fallacy, but it _feels_ real. He thinks, even if it’s just a little bit, that if he takes himself out things will get better for everyone else.

Either way… either way his mind’s firmly set. The only thing he hasn't decided on is the method. Vivi, Mystery and Lance won’t realize this is for the best, at first. If they think he committed suicide when they could have stopped it… well they wouldn’t have put all this effort into babysitting him if they didn’t want him to live, right? It’d hurt them to find out he’d killed himself. So… they can’t find out.

It has to look like an accident. Lucky for him, in his line of work, accidents occur fairly frequently.

At first, he wonders about “accidentally” cutting himself on the saw and bleeding out. He doesn’t linger on the thought. The idea alone terrifies him. He’s already experienced that kind of blood loss once, and he doesn’t particularly relish the thought of dying mid panic attack. Besides, that would leave a huge mess for Lance and Viv to clean up, and he doesn’t like the thought of putting them through that.

He could poison himself slowly with chemical compounds, make sure all the vents are clogged, but that sounds both terribly slow and likely to get him caught. He’s not completely certain how long it takes to die from suffocation by varying chemical compounds. He'd have to do research first, and any information he looks up will look suspicious in his browser history. He could make a reasonable guess and hope for the best, but if he gets the timing or the volume of the room wrong, he’ll just pass out and wake up to people worrying about him. Not good enough.

Briefly, he thinks about Lance’s expression back when he’d caught Arthur carelessly messing with wiring… There’s 120 V in the wall connection and a sink nearby. Wet skin carries more than enough current to stop the heart even at that voltage. It’d hurt like hell, but at least it wouldn’t leave too much mess. And it should kill him fast enough to avoid a last minute rescue. It’ll work. He just has to finish things up with their finances and wait for the right day. He thinks briefly of writing a will, and realizes that might look too suspicious. It has to look like an accident. It _has_ to.

So that’s it then, right? That’s the plan. Arthur works toward it with an awful sense of calm.

He had always considered himself a coward. He’d never been ashamed to admit it, really. It just meant he had better survival instincts than most. Every time they met a cult or paranormal threat before, Arthur feared death at their hands. He’s used to struggling for survival. He had always cowered and run from his end. But now…

He still fears death. He’s just _more_ afraid of what life looks like moving forward.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance goes in to work every day (save Tuesday and Sunday) so he’s easy enough to plan around. It’s Vivi he has trouble with. He figures he can wait her out. She will inevitably find a new case she has to investigate. For Vivi, the paranormal sits on an event horizon she’s traveled past long ago.

It does take longer than he thought, but she gets drawn back in before long. Turns out an older couple needs help with a grey lady in Eastern Oklahoma. Vivi gets off the phone with a smile like sunshine, so bright it aches to look at her.

“Come with us!” She calls this time, Mystery staring knowingly at him from behind her calves. “These things are usually fake, but it’s not as easy for me to figure out how. Your know-how would be invaluable. And on the off chance it _is_ a real grey lady, she’s not going to do anything to us. It’ll be fun!” Arthur smiles and tries not to poison the gesture with his thoughts. He realizes with a sense of sadness that this is really the beginning of the end.

“Maybe next time, Viv,” he demurs. He lies through his teeth to her, and hates every second of it. He hates that it’s starting to become easy. Doesn't matter. Won't matter soon. “I think I’ll feel ready for a hunt after I get this arm finished up.”

“Are you going to take care of yourself without me here to kick your ass?” He wants to laugh at her wording, but that might look odd. He settles for a half-hearted attempt at a smile.

“Promise,” he lies, and doesn’t. Vivi doesn’t notice any strangeness in his tone. She leans forward, so close he can smell the faint fragrance of her favorite shampoo, and pecks him on the cheek. Her lips set a fire against his skin. His heart burns. He could hate himself for it, but he’ll be dead soon. He thinks he can allow himself just a few last moments to enjoy this.

“I’ll leave tomorrow,” she tells him. 

_Me too_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say. “I’ll miss you,” he allows himself instead. The warmth of her smile carries him through to tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

 

After Viv’s gone, and Lance is gone, it’s just him alone again. Arthur listens for the hum of the van’s engine until he can’t hear it any longer. He looks at the arm and the bench, at the carefully planted bank statements for Lance to find, the screen full of answered emails and offers. He sees all the loose ends tied together and he thinks… okay.

Okay.

He goes to the bathroom first, because he knows someone’s going to find him, and he wants to leave behind the least amount of mess he can. It’s not stalling really, he tells himself. Besides, washing his hands can only help, right?

Once the thought strikes him, he realizes he should take a shower. He could moisten skin more efficiently that way, and besides, perhaps the scent of soap might cover up the smell of burning flesh later on.

Somehow, he finds the thought funny. He laughs about it to himself as he’s standing under the spray. For a moment, his hand trembles too wildly to pull his clothes back on. He laughs at that too, and tries not to think about how mad he must sound. Doesn’t matter. Won’t matter, anyway.

There’s a strangely sacred feeling to all of it as he trudges to the kitchen for a final glass of water. In a way, he supposes this might constitute a sort of cleansing ritual. Purging himself with all four elements from the world—the water, the electricity of the air, metal of the earth, and the burning heat of flame. Maybe he's accidentally made some sort of spell, to right the wrong of the cave. 

Too bad it can’t bring Lewis back.

He pads, barefoot and sloppily dressed back to his workbench, glass in hand. It strikes him suddenly that he is about to die. His extremities lock with fear, breath quaking and uneven as his neck breaks out in a cold sweat.

It’s only a moment of weakness. That same old last-gasp of survival instincts flaring back up again. He’s got to do this. He doesn’t want to live with any of this anymore. Maybe he’ll even get a chance to apologize to Lewis if the afterlife exists. It’s a nice dream. He lets the fantasy numb the fear until he can move again.

The arm he’s crafted diligently for months looks innocent enough from its place on the bench. He more or less figured out the battery weeks ago, but left it hooked into the wall just for this purpose. It wasn’t like Lance or Vivi could tell the difference.

“Oops,” he murmurs distantly as he upturns the glass of water over the whole thing. Once the cup is empty, he sets it artfully on its side, as if he’s just clumsily knocked it with an elbow. It’s got to look like an accident, he reminds himself. He rolls his palm through the liquid, letting it drip off the table and down to puddle at his feet.

His fingers brush the battery. It’s already warm beneath his hand. It probably shouldn’t be. If he had more time he might think harder about cooling and temperature control, he could—no. He’s finished with the arm. He’s never going to work on it again. That’s someone else’s job now.

Arthur yanks the input cable free and watches the tiny, bright ark of electricity that follows its exit. Irrationally, he worries that he might have just damaged the port a little, but—god—it doesn’t _matter._ It has to look like an _accident_. He takes a seat at the bench, and wraps the cord around his ankle. The plug dangles somewhere near the ball of his left foot. His fingers hover at the edge of the battery. His heel is so close to the water that he can feel the temperature difference above its surface. He—he just has to… He just has to do it.

_This is going to hurt_ , he thinks.

He hates being right.


	5. Hold On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the last Chapter of Flicker out! (Chapter 6 is only a short epilogue.) Hope you've enjoyed the ride, folks. I'll probably be moving on to Vivi's arc in the next part of this series. 
> 
> This chapter gets into a little more into some of my head-cannon than those previous, especially regarding Mystery. Hopefully no one minds too much. Included: pseudo-prehensile Kitsune tails, bullshit soul magic, Mystery refusing to call a certain blunette anything other than "Vivian," and Vivi’s latent seer abilities.
> 
> *It should be noted that a lot of this chapter comes from my own experience with suicidal tendencies and deep depression, not any kind of real expertise. Hopefully, I’ve managed to stay away from the most offensive and unhealthy clichés, but I can’t be sure. Take care of yourselves!
> 
> Also; Spirit foxes definitely do not make good therapy dogs. Mystery sucks at this.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t know how to describe it. For just one moment, he exists in blessed nothing. No memories, no pain, no real consciousness. He doesn’t have enough _self_ left to recognize the lack. Only the return of thought makes him aware it had ever left him. He simply _isn’t_ until...

Until he _is_. It’s alien and strange—a spark in the darkness, memories out of nothing, sensation he can’t feel. The abyss tumbles away with a terrible sense of loss that he doesn’t quite understand.

Sight fades back slowly, or something like it. Once he becomes aware again, he realizes that the world isn’t… right. It shifts like a kaleidoscope, ethereal and swirling. He thinks he recognizes his workshop, but he knows the _feel_ of it better than the shape. He doesn’t know how much time passes as he observes the blur fading into focus. He can’t tell whether time means anything here.

Eventually, as the lines of the world sharpen, he catches a glimpse of his own body. A web of bare threads fountain up and out from it, spiraling whispily toward him. He stares at them, entranced… until he notices Mystery.

The kitsune seems more solid and _real_ than everything else somehow. He stands over Arthur’s body in full spirit form, grasping at the web of threads with his maw, straining against it with his whole body. Arthur simply watches his friend pull. The web moves with him, strands thickening and brightening as they seem to coil back down into the empty body. Mystery keeps at it tirelessly, even as his flanks heave with the effort. He pulls until finally, with a yip of triumph, he grasps at something more substantial—something strange and luminescent that takes far too long for Arthur to recognize.

_Oh_ , he thinks as Mystery tugs, and Arthur moves along with him. Is that what a soul looks like? It certainly takes something like his human shape, shimmering orange-gold and streaming trails of light in his wake. He doesn’t really recognize it as _himself_ until he catches sight of the ugly, burnt end where his Left arm should be, sluggishly leaking molten gold into the ether. Later, he’ll remember to feel disgusted at the sight. It can take its place as another memory to haunt his nightmares and lurk in his waking thoughts. For now, he simply sees and accepts. Apparently, Mystery had had to tear a piece of his soul away to stop the possession that fatal night. Fitting, he supposes. He’s certainly felt broken ever since.

He watches impassively as Mystery wrestles him back down into his body. At first, he follows without care. It’s only… the closer he gets to corporeality, the better he understands. Hadn’t he been doing something? He’d—he was dying, right? He’d done that on purpose—he’d wanted to.

Terror returns to him first, hard and fast. Fear is an old companion of Arthur’s. It twists into his core and reminds him of all the horrors he wanted so desperately to leave behind. He’ll hurt Vivi, he’ll keep hurting Lance, he’ll put them in danger again, he’ll have to live with what he’s done, he’ll have to face the future _alone_ —

He tries to twist away, the smoke of his form boiling in Mystery’s jaw. The sudden show of resistance startles the spirit. He hesitates just for an instant, but that’s all the opportunity Arthur needs. Flickering orange worms away and starts to slip back toward the ether.

He’s on the precipice of escape when his sadness and guilt make their unwanted return. He _feels_ suddenly, tossed up and inundated by a wave of hurt. All the emotions he’d finally left behind rush back in with the force of a brick wall. He hits it hard and fast, freezes up long enough for Mystery to find better purchase on the stuff of his soul.

_No, no, no!_ he didn’t want this—he didn’t want to keep going. He didn’t want—

He tells himself over and over again. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t learned yet.

It doesn’t matter what he wants.

 

* * *

 

Arthur blinks awake and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Everything aches. His throat feels like sandpaper. He’d probably screamed at some point. Cardiac arrest hurt like hell. Not exactly breaking news, he supposes. He’d known it would. He just hadn’t thought he’d have to get back up again afterwards.   

It takes him a while to blink through the muzzy haze of pain and weakness. He has to fight to focus, only just manages to catch the gist of what’s going on around him.

“You dumbass! I—damn it, Arthur, how did you even— I knew I shouldn’t have left! Stupid. Stupid!” Vivi paces the length of the workshop, visibly vacillating between horrified and absolutely furious.

“Vivian, reacting like that isn't going to fix anything,” Mystery chimes. He sounds weary, but Arthur can't recognize that in the moment. He only knows that Mystery rests far too close to him for comfort. He doesn't know how he finds the energy to fear the spirit now, but somehow the same signals fire up in his head. It doesn’t matter. It _shouldn’t_ matter, but he feels himself losing grip on reality all the same. His missing arm twinges with familiar ripping pain, sending him into overload and taking consciousness back away for… he doesn’t know how long.

He comes around to the feeling of Vivi’s fingers brushing his neck.

“Fucking hell, I almost lost you again.” He can hear the tears threatening to spill. Arthur’s heart wenches with familiar guilt. He’d made peace with the idea that suicide meant leaving Vivi behind. It’s just harder to face when her hand is trembling against his pulse. “I—I should. I should let Lance know. I should—Mystery, we should take him to the hospital.”

He can’t let them. This was supposed to _fix_ everything, not make it worse. He’s worked _so hard_ to make things right for Lance, he’s not about to waste more money now.

“No hospital,” Arthur manages to croak past his paralysis, and he feels Vivi jolt at the sound. He fights to open his eyes, to make her _understand_ —but when he catches sight of her he loses focus.  She looks wrecked. Her hair is a mess, as if she’s spent the last few hours tearing her hands through it. Her eyes and nose are red, cheeks streaked with tears and she— She stares at him. Like he’s something important and fragile. Like she’s terrified he might disappear.

“Arthur!” she breathes, and her fingers find new strength. She grips at his shoulder, anchors herself there.  “When you feel better, I’m going to k-kick your ass. You—“ She sniffles, still dangerously close to weeping. Whether from upset or relief, he can’t tell. He’s too tired to think about it much. He wants to fix it, and knows he can’t. He only ever makes things worse.

That’s why—he just has to make sure—Lance can’t afford—

“No hospital,” he repeats himself. Vivi’s expression darkens. Her lips twist into a tremulous frown. “No point—too low of a voltage. Didn’t die, don’t need a hospital.”

“Damn it, Arty,” he hears her swear, just before she edges closer. She slips her arm under his shoulders. For a few moments, he thinks she means to pick him up somehow, but she just… leans forward. Vivi lies next to him on the floor and holds him as close as she can, heedless of the sizeable puddle he must be laying in. “Let me worry about you. You just—you almost just—I mean, if we’d gotten back any later you’d be—” She can’t say the words.

He doesn’t know what to tell her. He doesn’t understand what part of his plan went wrong. He hurts everywhere and he just wants to sleep. He feels like a mass of failure.

“He speaks truly, Vivian” Mystery rumbles from somewhere nearby. “His heart beats evenly, and I can keep a closer eye on him than any human doctor.” It’s all he needs to hear. If Mystery can back him up, that’s the best he can do. Arthur lets himself recede into nothing, dragged into sleep by the warmth of Vivi’s arms and the lullaby of her arguing.

 

* * *

 

By the time he’s conscious again, the sun has long been set. He blinks blearily out into his living room. Someone must have carried him here to the couch, where he lays covered in blankets and tucked in like a child. He recognizes the feeling with a nervous pang. There’s no question that Lance has heard about his misadventure by now…

Arthur wonders, briefly, whether his uncle will actually ban him from the workshop. More than that, he wonders whether he cares. He still wanted to give up. He didn’t really need the workshop to do that, did he? He’d already completed the prototype, with the patents sold and the money on the way. Was there any point to worrying about the future?

Arthur can’t decide, but the thought keeps him from falling back to sleep. He doesn’t have the energy to sit up, so instead he tries to focus on his surroundings. It’s too dark to see well, but Vivi’s faint snoring catches his ears from somewhere nearby. He has trouble determining where she is, but eventually he spots the second bundle of blankets on the floor beside the couch.  They rise and fall to the rhythm of Viv’s breath, her mess of blue hair peeping out at the top edge.

She’d positioned herself so that Arthur would practically have to step on her to get off the couch—like she didn’t want him to leave without her knowing.

He must have really frightened her.

“An electric suicide, Arthur?” The voice in the dark nearly sends him out of his skin. Arthur raises his gaze cautiously and finds himself staring into blood red eyes. As always, he tenses involuntarily at the sight, cringing back into the couch cushions and away from Mystery. “Surely only you would try something like that.” The old spirit sounds tired and sad, though his words alone would normally convey disdain. Arthur takes deep breaths and forces himself to calm. He should feel remorseful. He doesn’t. He never wanted to hurt his friend, but part of him hates Mystery for saving his life. He doesn’t know what went wrong. He had It all figured out—all fixed.

He has to compose himself before he can remember to answer.

“It was just an accident,” he mumbles. Mystery shoots him a look that could corrode steel.

“You fought me. You tried to stop me from bringing you back.” Arthur thinks on that a moment, shrugs.

“It was peaceful. I didn’t want to leave it.” Maybe he allows a tinge too much of anger to bleed into his words. That alone might have given the ruse away entirely; Mystery had always been perceptive. But then the spirit says,

“Vivian had a vision,” and he knows he has no hope of hiding.  “She saw you stab yourself in the heart with a sword made of lightning. It took her over awake. Nearly sent us careening into oncoming traffic.”

Vivi’s visions were seldom and generally indistinct. She used to discount them as dreams, but the Mystery Skulls had long ago learned to take them seriously. Each portended a warning or crucial clue. For her to dream of him so clearly in the middle of the day was—He hadn’t even known that could happen.

God, had she—had she seen Lewis that way too? He tortures himself imagining what the Sight might have shown her—his left hand at Lewis’s neck? His arms, thrusting a green lance into Lewis’s gut? It’s no wonder she’d screamed then. It’s no wonder she forgot, if—

He doesn’t want to think of that. He doesn’t want to do this anymore. He _can’t_.

“Arthur.” He can’t tell any longer whether reprimand or mourning dominates Mystery’s tone. He aches with exhaustion, bone deep. He watches the wilting white shape in the dark, small and dog-like again, and says nothing in his defense. “So. You really did mean to do it then. I had hoped perhaps I’d interpreted wrongly, but—”

Arthur clenches his hand beneath the blankets, winces as the motion sends a marching line of pain from flesh to bone. It hurts with a heavy, throbbing twinge he recognizes easily as a bad burn. Arthur wonders at the damage, if only to find something to distract himself with. He fights to free himself from the blankets wrapped around him, weak as a kitten. It takes far longer than it should to worm his arm up and out into the cold air. White bandages circle the appendage, dewy with ichor and antiseptic where the burn must sit beneath. He hates the sight of them. He doesn’t want to heal. He wants to rip it all away, but he can’t because—because he doesn’t have another hand to do it with. He wants to scream. His left arm is gone, and Lewis is gone and _he isn’t_ , and he doesn’t know _why_!

“You meant to do it. You planned the whole thing,” Mystery muses, his glinting gaze narrowing on Arthur as he struggles to sit upright. “But, you didn’t want us to know? Why?”

He doesn’t have to answer. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to _be_ here in any sense of the word. He wonders hysterically if he can hurry up and off himself _right_ _now_ in a way that doesn’t involve Mystery wrestling his soul back to life again, but he knows better. Everything is still…

Hopeless.

Arthur sags back against the couch, letting his bandaged palm flop painfully onto his blanketed lap. Mystery simply watches and waits for an answer. He sits—a still and silent judge in the dark. It’s too much. Arthur feels the words spilling from his mouth before he even knows what he means to say.

“You all still care, and I didn’t want to make anyone think they could have stopped me, or something. So it had to look like—” His thoughts sound so irrational out loud. He doesn’t know why he’s trying to explain—it doesn’t _matter_ , does it? Is there any point in making himself sound more pathetic than he already feels?

“So you assumed if your death wasn’t purposeful we would somehow mourn you less?” Mystery’s question challenges Arthur’s shoddy justifications and his thoughts trip over themselves to beleaguer him; he knew they still cared. He knew they would mourn regardless, but if they thought it was suicide, they’d blame themselves, right?

No. Maybe… had that been an arrogant thing to assume? Why should they blame themselves? It isn’t actually their fault. He’s not leaving because of _them_ , it’s because _he_ can’t bear to keep moving forward. They weren’t as stupid and guilt-prone about these things as he was. Why should it matter more or less to them?

Maybe it’s not about that at all. Maybe deep down he’d simply feared the way they’d think of him in retrospect. Maybe he doesn’t want to face himself, to know that he’s selfish and cowardly enough to seek escape when... Arthur can clearly recall the pain in Viv’s eyes the night she’d begged him to stay. He follows the rise and fall of her chest beneath her mound of blankets and knows the truth. At the core of it all, he chose himself over her, hadn’t he? He’d _decided_ to hurt her, to make his own hurt stop.

He doesn’t have an answer for Mystery. He wants nothing more than to spontaneously never have existed. He simply lays there feeling wretched and beaten, the burns at his hand and foot pounding in time to his headache and the ache in his phantom limb.

“Sorry,” Arthur calls out, because he doesn’t know what else to say—because he doesn’t know how to change—because he’ll make the same choices again in the future. Mystery heaves a sigh that seems far too large for his dog-form.

“Arthur, we love you very much. And even without knowing him well, I can easily say Lance does too. Regardless of the manner of your leaving, your absence would wound us _very_ deeply.” He doesn’t know why—it’s the strangest thing, but suddenly his throat feels far too tight. His eyes burn. “Do you have any idea how badly you frightened us all today? How worried we all were for you?”

 “Can we talk about this later? I don’t want—Let’s not wake Vivi up.” He stammers, trying not to admit to the way his voice trembles. He obviously wants to cry, but he doesn’t understand why. He doesn’t know how to feel. Everything simply weighs on him, pointless and painful all at once, too raw, too _much_.

“She won’t wake,” Mystery announces with far too much confidence. He flicks his tail and the faintest red spark of old magic dances from it to the top of Vivi’s head. Arthur kicks weakly at the blankets twisted around his legs, to no avail. He doesn’t have the energy to escape this, one way or another.

“Please, can we not—”

“Let’s cut to the chase, Arthur. You know how it felt to lose Lewis—do you really want to make her feel that way when you go?” His eyes widen, a white flash of fury threatening to make him care about something again.

“It isn’t the same!” he spits before he remembers himself. “If I go, it won’t be her fault. She’ll—she’s smart enough to know that.”

“Lewis’s death _wasn’t your fault_.” Mystery punctuates his words with an otherworldly growl- letting it layer over the syllables to weave two voices from one throat. Arthur glances away and tries not to think about the way that growl feels reverberating through bare bone. He’s far too exhausted to have to deal with a panic attack right now.

_You don’t get to say that,_ he thinks to himself. “Sure,” he says instead. He closes his eyes and tunes out the litany of muffled grumbling that follows.

“Alright, fine. You leave me no choice.” Mystery’s form shifts and grows as he talks, drawing attention to the eerie way his voice emanates from his form without his mouth moving at all.  Arthur watches him loom closer with wide eyes, his lungs seizing in his chest. He thinks for one terrified, elated moment that Mystery means to snap his neck and end it for him. He freezes, eyes clenched shut…

Nothing happens.

The seconds tick by… Mystery makes no move. Arthur tries to wait it out, but eventually he can’t stand not knowing. He chances a cautious glance, breath stuttering. White fur fills his field of view. The spirit sits by Vivi’s feet, his luminous red eyes staring deep and sad into Arthur’s own. Fox tails weave a warning over behind him. They flicker back and forth in irritation like a cat’s.  

“What,” he stumbles on the word. His throat feels too dry to speak, “what are you going to do?”

“Something I should have done from the beginning,” Mystery huffs. His eyes flash and Arthur’s arm is tearing-tearing, he can’t— “Of all the damnable—this is exactly the problem! Arthur, you aren’t there any longer! You’re safe here. No one will hurt you.”

“Why not?” he mumbles past remembered pain and gasping breath. If Mystery hears, he makes no remark. His eyes flash again, and Arthur fights against the wave of panic that sends cold chills running through his body. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, but he doesn’t think he has the right to protest.

“By all the little gods, there’s so _much_. Just how often do you dwell on that night?”

At first, the words mean nothing. His mind moves sluggishly, too caught in a mix of pain-panic-despair to think in a straight line. But as he mulls them over, back and forth, he starts to feel…

There’s alarm building in the back of his mind, but it doesn’t belong to him. There’s an echo of presence far too close—something _in_ him. There are thoughts in his head that aren’t _his_. It’s red instead of _green_ , but he remembers that feeling too well. It’s in his head, and Vivi can’t wake up. Vivi’s asleep right next to him. She has no defense against him if it decides to hurt her. This is it—the culmination of his nightmares, and there’s nothing he can—

No. He couldn’t save Lewis, but he _refuses_ to hurt her too. Maybe he can’t fight this kind of invasion, but he remembers that the demon needed time to possess him completely. He can still feel his mouth. It hasn’t spread there yet. He thinks he can bite down on his own tongue and hope to choke on the blood before—

Red flees from his thoughts with a bright flash of horror.

“Arthur! Arthur, no! It was only me.” Mystery’s tails arch awkwardly over the three of them, fluttering worriedly. Whimpers thread beneath the words. His ears lay flat against his skull. “I misstepped. I should have thought after that thing, you might react badly. I should have explained.”

“I… w-what?” He can’t speak around the shaking of his own body. His teeth chatter, catching on his newly sore tongue when he tries to talk. He can taste blood, but he doesn’t think he managed to bite far enough to do any real damage. Everything in him screams that is nothing more than a new kind of nightmare, but… but he can move on his own. He can twist and cry and nothing holds him down. He’s himself, isn’t he? Isn’t he?

“I should have talked to you first. I simply thought this would go more smoothly without your knowing.” Madness presses at the edges of his consciousness. He’s in the living room—the cave—the workshop. The world is green and red and green—

White fur brushes his brow. He can see the fear in Mystery’s expression now. He recognizes it—knows it from the inside. “Arthur.” Magic flashes behind his eyelids, just for the barest breath of a second. The sound of his name casts a net over his scattered thoughts, plasters over his shattering mind with the force of Mystery’s will. There is power in a name, and Mystery is not a dog. (Is terrifying).  “You need to forget, for all our sakes.”

Forget? He lets the word roll around in his head as Mystery’s strange spell floods him with false calm.  Forget. Like Vivi has forgotten… Go on with the hurt and never know why—abandon Lewis and pretend his hands had never killed anyone. That—

“No.” It seems like the ultimate betrayal.

“Why not?” the ruff at Mystery’s neck raises, fur stiffening. Under sway of the spell, Arthur doesn’t remember to shrink away. “What good does hanging on to it do you? If you can’t have a care for yourself, then at the very least for the rest of us! You refuse to leave your imagined guilt behind. You’ll let it carry you six feet under, and nothing we say can stop you. You don’t eat or sleep without coddling, you can’t even stand to be in the same room as me without flinching. Why wouldn’t you just let me fix it?”

Beneath his lingering panic, he knows Mystery has a point. Forgetting won’t absolve him of guilt, but neither will the path he’s chosen. He planned to leave them behind to grieve. Is that any less of a sin? He can tell himself it’s for their own good, but that makes the hurt they feel no less real. Besides, death can’t bring absolution, only escape. Is that so much different from forgetting? Either way, he’s searching for oblivion.

Maybe forgetting is just a different kind of death: one that can kill this pathetic, tired version of himself with nothing left to give.

He doesn’t deserve a fate that kind. But maybe Vivi does. Maybe…

“I don’t want to forget Lewis,” though his words slur with exhaustion, voice remains firm. He may not understand anything right now, but knows at least that much. Something like hope dawns behind Mystery’s red gaze.

“Then you won’t! I’ve used this magic far longer than Vivian. I do possess a few centuries of finesse she can’t replicate.”

That’s…

It’s too easy. Just… forget that night? Lose the nightmares, shake the constant paranoia that Mystery might suddenly reach out and snap him up? Never recall the horrible, sickening sensation of something _other_ slipping into his skin and making him—making him—

All of that, just… gone?

That’s what he wanted, right? Maybe the spirit really did know best.

And yet, the taste of blood fills his mouth and sits heavy in his thoughts. Mystery’s calming spell wavers as he thinks on the memory of _green_. Forgotten or not, there’s still one problem only death can solve.

“Mystery,” Arthur calls. He reaches out with his injured hand to leverage himself into a sitting position. Even in his weakened state, the act takes far too much effort. He notices a tail or two gently settling him into position and chooses not to mention it. “You have to promise me something.”

Red eyes stare him down with suspicion too human for that fox-like face. “What kind of something.” Not even two decades with Vivi could shake Mystery’s centuries of caution. Fair enough, he supposes.

“If I forget, I won’t know what possession feels like. I need you to promise you’ll—”

“No.” For once, Mystery cringes away from Arthur. Bitter humor tugs at the edges of his lips. Only Mystery’s magic allows him to sit here without fear. It doesn’t matter.

“If I put Vivi in danger, or you, anyone else for that matter, I need to know you’ll end it right then and there. Otherwise, I can’t trust myself enough to just…forget.”

“That’s your condition,” the kitsune sighs, his gaze drifting down to stare at Vivi’s prone form. They both know he can’t refuse. Vivi matters more, to both of them. She always has. They watch her breathe in the silence until Mystery finally lowers his proud head. “If I see no other way to stop it, I will take your life before your hands harm her. You have my word.”

It’s like a dam breaking—a flood of relief he’d never known he needed _so much_.

“Thank you, Mystery.” He reaches out and tangles his shaking fingers in white fur. Arthur meets the brilliant red of his friend’s eyes and he is very, _very_ tired.

“Rest,” He hears, and knows no more.


	6. Epilogue: Safety Net

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you'll all remember my warning in chapter 1 about pseudo medicine, and forgive me my bio-engineering sins. 
> 
> See you in part 2! Tentatively named "Keep pretending"
> 
> Drop me a line and let me know what you think.

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur doesn’t relish the thought of _another_ surgery, but he’s determined to see it through. The nerve implants seem to have worked out alright. They still feel completely strange, and sometimes he hallucinates synapses firing for no reason, but his self-engineered myoelectric sensors respond to them beautifully. Rearranging his nervous system involved something of an invasive operation, but aside from the new scars, he thinks he got out pretty okay. Rigging up the osseointegration for his new arm on the other hand… Unsurprisingly, the process of grafting a titanium rod to bone is excruciating. The attachment took two surgeries and several months to settle into place, and it’s still too weak to test out just yet. It looks disconcerting, jutting out into the open air with his skin slowly healing around it. Hurts like a bitch, but it hasn’t become infected yet, so he’ll take his victories where he can get them. 

Now he’s facing the last operation (hopefully). It terrifies him. This procedure will be far riskier than the others, but he has to see it through. He needs more degrees of freedom on that arm and he knows he can make it work. His design _will_ function. He has to have faith in that. Hell, so do a lot of other people if the price they paid for his latest patents serve as any evidence. His designs (and redesigns) paid out enough to keep funding all his experimental medical work. Maybe in another life, he'd have made a career of it. 

“Arthur, you know I trust your engineering, but I just—a _brain_ implant? Do you really have to?” Lance really wanted to be here, but he still has to run the shop. Instead, Vivi’s the one driving him to the hospital. Her hands grip the wheel just a touch too tight.

Arthur gives her his best approximation of a smile and tries not to look as anxious as he feels. “It’s going to be fine,” he tells her for the hundredth time, and tries to make himself believe it. Honestly, if it were just him, he’d probably settle for a more standard myoelectric prosthetic and call it a day, but he needs this. He has to be strong enough to go out on Viv’s cases again. He doesn’t want to be a liability. He might not relish the thought of all the ways this could go sideways, but he has to go through with it, because…

Because everything’s all wrong. Because something’s messed with Viv’s head. Because he _knows_ there’s a reason Lewis is missing, he just—every time he tries to remember what happened that night, his mind goes blank. People keep telling him that’s normal, given what he’s been through. He lost an arm that night _somehow_ , and apparently people often forget experiences like that? But that just doesn’t sound right to him. It feels like trying to finish a sentence and forgetting the words. He _knows_ something happened, but it’s just beyond his reach. He can’t….

He knows they lost him at the cave. He remembers… stepping into green fog.  Arthur hadn’t wanted to be there, but the others were used to his usual reservations and they walked on. He remembers trekking in Lew’s footsteps, trying to hide from the oppressive feeling of oncoming doom. There was… something there. A spirit? He—

/ _God, no, Lewis! No- no-no—I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t me!  I didn’t want— Please, Please, it’s got to be a dream. Let me wake up. Let me Wake UP!/_

—hadn’t wanted to be there, but the others were used to his usual reservations and they walked on. He remembers being unnerved by every shadow, feeling like something would jump out and grab him at any second. He—

/ _Teeth and claws and white fur stained red, latching on to flesh. There’s a red-eyed beast tearing away at the thing in his arm, biting down, splintering the bone. He’s floating out of his body, mind shutting down, overloaded with agony. He doesn’t even remember his own name, but he still remembers what that arm made him do. Fuck, Lewis, please don’t be dead—please!/_

—knows they lost him at the cave, but that’s as far as he can recall. Everything after the sight of that gaping, hollow cairn is a blank space in his memory.

Memory, Memory—He can’t remember. And Vivi’s even worse. Did they run into some sort of being that played with the mind, _ate_ memories? It might explain why Lewis hasn’t come back on his own. What if Lewis was made to forget them too? What if one of the people more important to him than anything is wandering confused and alone in an unfamiliar place? The thought makes his heart ache.

“If you’re sure,” Vivi sighs, and it takes him a moment to remember what they’re supposed to be talking about. “Do you want me to bring you anything for when you get out? I have no idea what you’ll be allowed to eat, but if you want one of your games or something—” She can’t look at him easily while she’s driving, so he seizes the opportunity to really take her in. She’s frazzled. Her hair’s even messier than usual, her shirt’s wrinkled and she hasn’t stopped worrying about him since—since—? Since he lost his arm(?) There’s an empty echo in her eyes, and every time he tries to mention Lewis, her face goes slack. It’s got to hurt, even if she doesn’t know why it’s hurting. Arthur hates it. 

“No, Viv. Just your smiling face.” She rolls her eyes, but her lips quirk into the semblance of a real grin, and that’s good enough.

That’s just it, isn’t it? Her smile—it’s the thing that makes all this pain and worry worth it. Her happiness, and Lewis’s—that’s the real reason for everything he does. Vivi and Lewis were always supposed to be together, and if he’s the only one with the memory to know it, he’s the only one who can make it right. So, he’s going to need the best arm he can get. And as soon as he’s recovered enough, they’ll set out. He’ll find Lewis, no matter what it takes. He’ll find a way to fix this. He _will_.


End file.
